The term “Marketing” is the process of ‘delivering value’ to customers. As the name suggests, Marketing Myopia deals with the concept of a company or marketer’s short-sightedness when it comes to marketing strategies and approaches for their products, services, or industry as a whole. The main idea here is to meet the customer’s needs and create value rather than just looking at the gains made from short-term sales. An organization needs to know where it is heading. A business might have state-of-the-art technology, a huge market share, and very skilled employees but it would all be futile if that organization does not have a straightforward and tangible understanding of what it is trying to achieve in the long run.
Mr. Levitt in his article “Marketing Myopia” published in the Harvard Business Review starts by giving an example of the railroads. He tries to get people to understand that it is the vision and goals of the company that directs its people to work for a purpose and is fundamental to the success of a company. He talks about how there was no problem with the management or construction of railroads but an overall issue with the long-term vision of the industry. They looked at railroads as just an independent sector/industry rather than picturing it as a solution to the overall transportation problem of the world. They looked at it as an immediate fix to the mobility issues faced by customers as well as corporations. This lack of vision is what led to the inception of cars and other transportation sectors that ultimately led to the halt in the growth of this industry.
The second example presented is that of the Hollywood industry. It focused only on creating movies that were appealing to a selected group of Hollywood movie lovers. It never thought of developing into a complete entertainment solution for screen lovers. Levitt implies how Hollywood failed to realize that it could serve a bigger purpose than just creating movies and thus creating a gap. This gap was filled by others which led to the popularity of the T.V. industry which provided enough means of entertainment for the customers ultimately becoming a competition of Hollywood itself. This clearly shows how developing a solution to one problem doesn’t guarantee dominance or sustainable success. Instead of looking for short-term fixes, marketers need to focus on creating a solution that can solve a problem from scratch.
How many of us go to the Dry Cleaners? The next example given in the article is about how Dry Cleaning was a very popular and rapidly expanding business back in the day but with the inception of chemicals and the arrival of ultrasonic technology, it started to decline. This poses a very critical question, “How far should marketers or companies think down the line? A year, 5, or maybe 10?” Technology is evolving and with it, newer trends keep getting popular while the old ones get obsolete. Keeping the SWOT analysis in mind, businesses will come up with innovations to retain their customers.
The author brings out an important point that a naturally expanding business will halt the ability of a manufacturer to think very hard or imaginatively. This means that there is a common tendency among manufacturers to only look at quick fixes, or solutions to currently existing problems. Therefore, if imaginative thinking arises only from problems, the absence of a problem would mean the absence of any kind of imaginative thinking. This gives rise to the assumption that the management of any business will stop thinking of ways to expand the market as per their imagination or creativity if the market is expanding naturally due to changes in environment or technology. The short-sightedness of industries is one of the reasons why markets ultimately sink.
Major points of the article:
Levitt gives four major points arguing why these industries slow down in their growth conquest while giving various examples for them.
- Belief in the concept that growth is guaranteed through an expanding and more affluent population.
- The belief that there is no competitive substitution for the industry’s major product.
- Too much faith in mass production and 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.
Conclusion:
This is the information age where information flows as fast as ever. It is more liquid and accessible than it ever was. If a business wants to survive and grow in today’s age it needs to recognize the need for knowledge about the changing trends, technologies, and customer tastes.
This article speaks volumes about why businesses need to have a clearly defined purpose and customer value. They shouldn’t just superficially look at their environment but scan it for excruciating details with a bird’s eye view. The management or policymakers of any business should be able to visualize the local and global implication of changing trends and focuses solely on short-term gains, they will inevitably be caught in myopia.
Also, no business or process can live in isolation today. A business has to carefully evaluate the bigger picture where it visualizes the overall impact of its strategies with the view of the market and starts to think imaginatively. Today, businesses are realizing as well as understanding the larger competitive implications and trends that have resulted in a change in their strategies and policies. These kinds of pressure motivate these businesses to act promptly and innovate efficiently.
The information age has enabled companies to develop innovative competitive advantages but has also posed a large number of threats that lead to the instantaneous loss of that advantage. Therefore, only trying to achieve the short-term goal of profit-making will not get any business very far because a single idea, a new product, or even a new use of an existing idea can change the marketplace rapidly. Organizations are forced to continuously evolve and innovate to stay in the race. Failing to do this will leave the organization with the feeling of expansion when in turn it would only be a self-deceiving cycle that will lead to undetected decay within the organization.
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