Written in 1960, the article revolutionized the thought processes of business managers who were narrowly focused on the products they sold—they were short-sighted or myopic, as Levitt calls it. It is important to define an industry by asking a simple question—“what business are we in? To ensure growth, companies must define their business properly based on customer needs and desires. Businesses are actually customer satisfying institutions/entities. my·o·pi·a lack of imagination, foresight, or intellectual insight

1. Marketing Myopia
by Levitt Theodore
(1975)
By Abhinav kp

2. Theodore Levitt (1925-
2006)
• PROFESSOR AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL AND
EDITOR OF THE “HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW”
• DEAN OF MARKETING, KNOWN FOR HIS
CONTRIBUTION IN MARKETING. THE JOURNEY MAY
HAVE STARTED WITH “MARKETING MYOPIA” IN
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW IN 1960 WHEN HE WAS A
LECTURER AT HARVARD
• POPULARIZED THE TERM OF GLOBALIZATION WITH
HIS ARTICLE “GLOBALIZATION OF MARKETS” IN 1968
• AWARDS INCLUDE MCKINSEY AWARDS FOR BEST
ANNUAL ARTICLE AND CHARLES COOLIDGE PARLIN
AWARD AS MARKETING MAN OF THE YEAR IN 1970.
• ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FIGURES IN
MARKETING AND ECONOMICS

3. Essence of the Article
 Written in 1960, the article revolutionized the thought
processes of business managers who were narrowly focused on
the products they sold—they were short-sighted or myopic, as
Levitt calls it.
 It is important to define an industry by asking a simple
question—“what business are we in?
 To ensure growth, companies must define their business
properly based on customer needs and desires. Businesses are
actually customer satisfying institutions/entities.

4. Myopia
my·o·pi·a
lack of imagination, foresight, or
intellectual insight

5. Fateful Purposes
 Companies went into decline because they did not define their
industries properly
 Examples of some successful and unsuccessful companies that
were product-oriented and not customer-oriented are:
 Railroad didn't stop growing because need for passenger and
freight transportation declined
 Hollywood escaped being totally ravished by television

6. Shadow of Obsolescence
 Threats to products within industries and remaining unprepared
to the improvements cripple the presence of companies
 Dry cleaning: synthetic fibers and chemical were appearing, we
no longer need dry cleaning.
 Electric utilities: solar energy, fuel cells, and other power source
are threat to electric utilities.
 Grocery store: supermarket are doing a better job of
understanding customers need than grocery stores.

7. Self-Deceiving Cycle

8. Self-Deceiving Cycle
 Self-deceiving cycle occurs when companies lack the vision. Inappropriate self-
assessment system leads to failure in the long run.
 Four conditions that guarantee the self-deceiving cycle:
 Belief that growth is assured by an expanding and more affluent population
 Belief that there is no competitive substitute for the industry’s major product.
 Too much faith in mass production and in the advantages of rapidly declining unit costs as
output rises
 Preoccupation with a product that lends itself to carefully controlled scientific
experimentation, improvement and manufacturing cost reduction

9. Population Myth
 Assured profits based on expanding population
 Increasing purchases?
 Market growth based on this assumption
 Limits imagination
 absence of problem
 absence of thinking

10. Production Pressure
 Mass Production
 Drive to PRODUCE!!!
 Spectacular profit possibilities
 Marketing neglected
 Lag in Detroit
 Failed to reveal customer’s wants
 Product-oriented
 Ford
 Production genius
 Marketing genius
 Product provincialism
 “Creative Destruction”

11. Dangers of R&D
 Top-heavy engineers and scientist management
 Bias in favor of Research and Product Development
 Marketing Treated as residual activity
 Biased towards controllable variables
 Consumers are:
 Unpredictable
 Varied
 Fickle
 Stupid
 Shortsighted
 Stubborn
 Bothersome

12. Step Child Treatment
 No one interested in basic human needs
 Questions about customers and Markets not asked
 More excitement in more product then the customers
 Articles detailed towards production and none for
marketing

13. The Beginning and End?
 Customer-Satisfying process viewpoint is vital
 Violating rules of Scientific Method
 Define the problem
 Develop hypothesizes to solve the problem
 Customer satisfaction not being considered as
the problem
 Selling and Marketing are different

14. Visceral Feel of Greatness
 Leaders need to have vision that can produce
eager followers
Followers are the customers
 Management must not produce products but
provide customer-creating value satisfactions
Firm must think of “buying customers”
 Leader must know where they are going
If a leader goes down any road, they
might as well stay at home.

15. A Few Terms
 Product Provincialism
 Step-Child Treatment
 Creative Destruction
 The Beginning and End

16. Thank You 