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Marketing myopia is a term used in marketing as well as the title of an important marketing paper written by Theodore Levitt.[1][2] This paper was first published in 1960 in the Harvard Business Review, a journal of which he was an editor. Marketing Myopia refers to "focusing on products rather than customers." The Myopic culture, Levitt postulated, would pave the way for a business to fail, due to the short-sighted mindset and illusion that a firm is in a so-called 'growth industry'. This belief leads to complacency and a loss of sight of what customers want. Some commentators have suggested that its publication marked the beginning of the modern marketing movement. Its theme is that the vision of most organizations is too constricted by a narrow understanding of what business they are in. It exhorted CEOs to re-examine their corporate vision; and redefine their markets in terms of wider perspectives. It was successful in its impact because it was, as with all of Levitt's work, essentially practical and pragmatic. Organizations found that they had been missing opportunities which were plain to see once they adopted the wider view. The paper was influential. The oil companies (which represented one of his main examples in the paper) redefined their business as energy rather than just petroleum. By contrast, when the Royal Dutch Shell embarked upon an investment program in nuclear power, it failed to demonstrate a more circumspect regard for their industry. One reason that short sightedness is so common is that people feel that they cannot accurately predict the future. While this is a legitimate concern, it is also possible to use a whole range of business prediction techniques currently available to estimate future circumstances as best as possible. There is a greater scope of opportunities as the industry changes. It trains managers to look beyond their current business activities and think "outside the box". George Steiner (1979) is one of many in a long line of admirers who cite Levitt's famous example on transportation. If a buggy whip manufacturer in 1910 defined its business as the "transportation starter business," they might have been able to make the creative leap necessary to move into the automobile business when technological change demanded it.[3]

People who focus on marketing strategy, various predictive techniques, and the customer's lifetime value can rise above myopia to a certain extent. This can entail the use of long-term profit objectives (sometimes at the risk of sacrificing short term objectives).

[edit] Similar termsAt some point in its development, every industry can be considered a growth industry based on the apparent superiority of its product. However, in case after case, industries have fallen under the shadow of mismanagement. What usually gets emphasized is selling, not marketing. This is a mistake, because selling focuses on the needs of the seller, whereas marketing concentrates on the needs of the buyer. In this widely quoted and anthologized article, first published in 1960, Theodore Levitt argues that "the history of every dead and dying 'growth' industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay." But, as he illustrates, memories are short. The railroads serve as an example of an industry whose failure to grow is due to a limited market view. Those behind the railroads are in trouble not because the need for passenger transportation has declined or even because cars, airplanes, and other modes of transport have filled that need. Rather, the industry is failing because those behind it assumed they were in the railroad business rather than the transportation business. They were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented, product oriented instead of customer oriented. For companies to ensure continued evolution, they must define their industries broadly to take advantage of growth opportunities. They must ascertain and act on their customers' needs and desires, not bank on the presumed longevity of their products. In short, the best way for a firm to be lucky is to make its own luck. An organization must learn to think of itself not as producing goods or services but as doing the things that will make people want to do business with it. And in every case, the chief executive is responsible for creating an environment that reflects this mission. Kotler and Singh (1981) coined the term marketing hyperopia, by which they mean a better vision of distant issues than of near ones.[4] Baughman (1974) uses the term marketing macropia meaning an overly broad view of your industry.[5A short-sighted and inward looking approach to marketingthat focuses on the needs of the company instead of defining the company and its products in terms of thecustomers' needs and wants. It results in the failure to see and adjust to the rapid changes in their markets. The concept of marketing myopia was discussed in anarticle (titled "Marketing Myopia," in July-August 1960 issueof the Harvard Business Review) by Harvard Business School emeritus professor of marketing, Theodore C. Levitt (1925-2006), who suggests that companies get trapped in this situation because they omit to ask the vital question, "What business are we in?"

Myopic, as the word itself has its meaning short sightedness . Marketing Myopia is an interesting as well as very important concept introduced by US marketing academician Ted Levitt for marketing management. According to him, most of the organizations are not able to reach their potential and pave the way for their fall because of their myopic approach. which is short sighted and self centered , they only focus on their firm or organization and its items/products in terms of their so called aim of fulfilling customers needs and wants. This concept was first discussed by Theodore C. Levitt in the article Marketing Myopia published in Harvard Business Review in 1960. What he emphasized in this article was that companies should view the marketing from customers point of view not from their point of view. According to him Sustained growth depends on how broadly you define your businessand how carefully you gauge your customers needs. Marketing Myopia is the quintessential big hit HBR piece of all time. In it, Theodore Levitt, who was then a lecturer in business administration at the Harvard Business School, introduced the famous question, What business are you really in? . He gave a emphatic example of the firm and organization in the business of railroads. As per his Myopic marketing theory this business did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. It is in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars,trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the rail-roads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented. What he wanted to convey to the organizations, was that they must learn to think of itself not as producing goods or services but as buying customers, as doing the things that will make people want to do business with them.

Maruti Gypsy : RIP Brand : Gypsy Company: Maruti Suzuki Brand Count : 182

Gypsy was one of India's first sports utility vehicles. The vehicle created a breakaway category of SUV offroader from the existing jeep category which was dominated by

Mahindra. Born in 1985, the brand was considered as an aspirational one by many young at hearts.The brand was positioned on the basis of its ruggedness. The brand was promoted as a pure offroader. The ads used to say that Gypsy could even climb trees. The positioning was reinforced by the success of the brand in rally and offroad events. Maruti also promoted such events to boost the brand as the ultimate offroader. The brand had the tagline of " There is a Gypsy in Everyone".

But the brand failed to capitalise on the first mover advantage although it is still considered to be one of the sportiest looking SUV in the Indian market. The brand is now confined to certain niche markets like Police and Army vehicle segments. Gypsy was the rebadged version of Suzuki Jimny. Although Jimny is still surviving, Gypsy is in the last stage of its product life cycle. The brand which pioneered the offroader category sadly is dying when the SUV category has started growing. The brand failed because of the apathy of the company in investing in the brand. The product had inherent problem that created negative word of mouth and the company didn't cared to look at the negatives of the brand. Gypsy although considered as a tough vehicle lacked many important attributes valued by a customer. The driving quality and the mileage was awful. The product was priced at a ridiculous premium which was not justified interms of the delivery of value. The brand was priced at around Rs 5 lakh which is comparable with a entry level sedan.The product although looked excellent outside was a mess inside. The vehicle lacked space and comfort especially for the rear seat. It had all the qualities for an offroader but failed to understand that Indian consumers use offroaders on roads ( cities).The mileage was awful and that ensured that only those who fall head over heals over the looks only will buy this brand . Since MUL at that time was in the public sector, the brand was sold to Police and army. For the ordinary consumers, the brand did not made any sense. Gypsy also did not change itself in tune with the changing industry requirements. The vehicle initially was severely underpowered for an offroader. The company enhanced the power from 975cc to

1300 cc only after 11 years. Gypsy King was launched in 1996 sported the more powerful Esteem engine but was priced steeply. The last four years has shown that SUV category is growing very fast fuelled by the success of the likes of Mahindra Scorpio. Most of the global bigwigs in the SUV segment is now there in India. Suzuki also has launched its brand Grand Vitara in this segment. But in the current scheme of things, Gypsy was sadly not in the picture. Compare the picture of the Suzuki Jimny (given in the blog) and Gypsy and see the difference. Had this brand changed its looks and feel in tune with the emerging category requirements, Gypsy could have been a major brand. But Alas.... the brand's fate is to be cited as an example of Marketing Myopia or is it Marketing Laziness.

He gave a classic example of railroads in America which declined because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business in a narrow sense and not in a broad sense of transportation business. Even, Hollywood at one point of time,

suffered from this myopia as many film companies tried to reject TV rather than seeing it as an opportunity. The problem again was the narrow definition of being 10 in film business rather than entertainment business. He also gave positive examples of companies like DuPont who succeeded because of their intense focus on the customer and his needs. His words are an authoritative and insightful statement about the purpose of an enterprise. They go far beyond the hackneyed belief that business exist only to make money. He listed examples of a few industries which were initially labeled as growth industries and looked very promising at one point of time but which eventually lost out to their competitors. These include the dry cleaning industry (losing to synthetic fibers and chemical additives), the grocery stores (the supermarkets getting the better of them). Levitt classified four conditions or beliefs or rather misbelieves which led to the companies getting affected by the disease-Marketing Myopia. More population more growth

Population grows in all countries, in some like India; it grows at a high pace while in some, it grows slowly. Producers are bound to feel that an expanding population ensures an expanding market for their products too. With this wrong belief comes the complacency of not giving due attention to marketing. In this context, Levitt gave the example of the petroleum industry, the industry was asking for trouble by focusing on improving the efficiency of making its product and not really on the real need of improving the generic product or its marketing. We, and only we are unique Levitt challenged the petroleum industrys assumption that there was no challenge to its major product i.e gasoline. The initial promise shown by gasoline as the potential of lighting the kerosene lamps around the world was dealt a major blow by Edison as he invented a source of light which was totally non-dependent on crude. The point Levitt was trying to make was that a product can become obsolete pretty quickly and companies and

industries need to keep this in mind. In Levitts words, If a company's own research does not make it (the product) obsolete, another's will. Make it cheap, cheaper, cheapest What is often the case with large companies, production gains in focus compared to marketing and to make the matters worse, the companies make very little distinction between marketing and selling. Levitt said that a companys product should emerge as a consequence of the marketing effort and not the other way round. Interestingly, in this regard, he gave the example of Henry Ford who he said was more of a marketing genius than a product genius. Ford had himself said that he did not consider any costs as fixed. In Fords words, We first reduce the price to the point where we believe more sales will result and then go ahead and try to make the prices. The point is that companies should not get carried away by the potential profits which are promised by achieving low unit production costs and forget about marketing.11 Wrong Mathematics : Research +

Development Consumer Needs Although R&D is a factor which deserves to be given attention but Levitt argued, as was in case of the electronics industry, that R&D was being paid too much attention. He pointed out the problem with the electronics industry at that time as the fact that it was riding only on a wave of R&D without the surfboat of good marketing. When products are technically challenging and complex, marketing gets downgraded to the label of something else that needs to be done but only after the entire production process is complete. A reason for this could be the fact that various marketing researches attempt to study consumers consumers which are generally unpredictable, finicky and sometimes, even stubborn. While in comparison, technical researches deal with more controlled variables which can be measured a bit easily. All this eventually leads to consumer needs getting a stepchild treatment at the hands of science and technology. So, a firm, a company, an industry;

whatever it is that one is involved in, one can find that these misbelieves and wrong notions still exist in one way or the other. This disease of Marketing Myopia is as common today as it was in the time when Levitt wrote his famous article. So, companies should learn from the examples pointed out by Levitt and realize the importance of marketing. As clichd as it may sound but prevention is certainly better than cure.Does anyone remember the KODAK 'Box Brownie' or the Polaroid? I sure do. The 'Box Brownie' was introduced in 1900 and offered a relatively cheap easy and foolproof way for ordinary people to take photos. Over the past 100+ years the name KODAK meant quality in the area of film itself and film products such as cameras. Whether it was their extensive range of consumer products or those huge Panoramic cameras used to make movies, the name KODAK seemed to be everywhere.

In 1948 Edwin Land - a Harvard dropout launched the first instant camera - the Polaroid. Polaroid went on and dominated the instant camera market for about 50 years. In the mid 70's KODAK and Polaroid started to have their stoushes with copyright infringements that cost both companies dearly.

In 2001, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy. In 2012 it seems KODAK is headed the same way preparing to file for bankruptcy. What happened? What happened to two of the arguably largest companies ever to offer simple consumer friendly products and in the case of KODAK, film developing and printing services.? Digital photography. The digital camera age started in 1975. It was bulky, cumbersome - the image took forever to be recorded on a cassette tape - and poor quality, but it worked and just as the Box Brownie and Polaroid before it, the digital camera literally captured the hearts, minds and wallets of millions.

Marketing myopia is an advertising strategy that does not focus on the needs and wants of consumers, but the desires of a company to sell specific goods or services in the economic market. Classic economic theory attempts to explain that consumers will tell companies the type of goods and services desired through the economic behavior demonstrated by individual consumers. Companies can benefit from this behavior by actively researching how consumers are spending their money and what goods are services are currently popular in the economic market. Marketing myopia can distort the companys view when managers focus more on what the company can produce rather then what consumers are willing to buy. A classic example of marketing myopia is seen by Ford Motor Companys development of theEdsel. The Ford Edsel was a late 1950s model passenger car built under the marketing strategythat it was going to revolutionize the automotive industry. The car was designed with the intent of being a large, stylish vehicle that would meet the driving needs for thousands of U.S. consumers and families. Although the Edsel was released with much fanfare and publicity frommarketing agencies and media outlets, it was an almost immediate failure in the consumer market. While reviews at the time cited the vehicles poor workmanship and styling, business experts have attributed the failure to marketing myopia and a failure to understand consumer desires. The name Edsel is now a business term synonymous with business or marketingfailure. Marketing myopia may also occur when a business focuses on developing advertising strategies for wrong target markets or demographic groups. Individuals in the economic market usually view advertising strategies or techniques in different ways; their perceptions are built upon culture, race, age or other personal opinions. Companies that fail to understand the perceptions of consumers when advertising goods or services usually wind up with marketingmyopia. Companies in todays business environment often spend copious amounts of money conducting marketing research before releasing new products or services. This research or focus group activity may be related to the utter failure of the Ford Edsel marketing campaign. Rather than spending huge sums of money on national advertising or marketing campaigns, companies will use test markets to determine the strength of consumer demand for goods or services prior to a national rollout of new products. These test markets may also help companies build specific marketing strategies based on the feedback they receive from individual consumers. Any information gleaned can help companies avoid the terrible results of marketing myopia.N THE 27 years John Van Duijneveldt worked at Kodak's Australian film manufacturing plant, he took comfort from the thought its giant international parent would be there to look after him should its local operation run into trouble. And so, in 2004, when Kodak closed its Melbourne factory, there was no doubt the 650 workers left jobless would receive their entitlements. ''They're a very big company and they've been in business for a hell of a long time,'' he said yesterday. ''I would have thought that Kodak would be around for a long time.'' Yet the future of the company that made photography available to millions now appears far from certain.Advertisement: Story continues below

The US company, once ranked among America's corporate titans, is reportedly preparing to file for bankruptcy, a casualty of the digital age. The company's story has become a popular business school case study of failure to adapt to change. ''What you have is a classic example of what is referred to as marketing myopia,'' said Bryan Lukas, a professor of marketing at the University of Melbourne. ''They were focused on the things they were doing at the time Kodak said 'we make films', rather than saying 'we create storage possibilities for memories.' '' Kodak marketed its first camera in 1888. A century later its global workforce peaked at more than 145,000 (today, it has fewer than 19,000 employees). But it responded poorly to competition, first from rival film manufacturers, then from makers of digital cameras and smartphones. While it built the first digital camera in 1975 - a toaster-sized device which took black and white images at a resolution of .01 megapixels - it failed to capitalise on its invention. It opened its Melbourne plant in 1965 but by the 1990s much production was being shifted to countries with cheaper labour. More than $40 million in federal and state government subsidies, and the awarding of the hosting rights for the 2000 Olympics to Sydney extended its life. The Australian arm recorded a profit of $56 million in 2000 but by 2002 this had shrunk to just $615,000.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/kodak-moment-fades-into-memory-20120105-1pmxa.html#ixzz1iy60zaZy