Analysis of Marketing Myopia Article by Theodore Levitt - Essay Example

Marketing, Essay Topic: Marketing Myopia Marketing Myopia Marketing myopia is an article written by Theodore Levitt who was a marketing professor at Harvard and has also published other articles on this subject. In order to clearly understand the approach used by this author, we need to understand what the term marketing myopia actually is. Marketing myopia is when marketers focus on existing customer needs instead of studying underlying customer needs. They concentrate on the product itself rather than on the benefits the product gives to the customers. As a result, they are unable to compete with smart marketers who focus on current customer needs and provide products by creating a brand experience for consumers (Principles of marketing, Book). Therefore, an efficient marketer would carefully plan and adopt strategies which are customer oriented and would try to build profitable customers relationships. In this article, the author says that marketers today focus on production and selling rather than adopting customer oriented strategies. He urges marketers to concentrate on their industries and plan their activities strategically in order to remain competitive. He also tries to motivate the marketers to study the needs of the customers to make profitable customer relationships. The main focus of this article is on providing customer value and following a customer oriented approach. The article revolves around the customer oriented approach as presented 52 years ago but can still be applied to the modern world approaches these days. In this article, the author portrays that a lot of businesses in many industries have been declining or going through the declining stage, not because of saturation of the market but because of the shortcomings of the management. The main setback is the inability of managers to concentrate on customers and find current customer needs. The managers keep on fulfilling existing customer needs instead of carrying out marketing research to find out current needs of the market. Marketers should try to provide those goods and services which fulfill the needs and wants of customers. There is no need of useless and inefficient market offerings which are entirely product oriented instead of customer oriented. In order to find current customer needs and wants, marketers need to carry out effective marketing research and provide only those goods and services which are actually wanted by the customers. The author gives the example of the railway business and the reasons for its decline. He explains that the railroad business concentrated on their railways instead of the benefit of transportation that it provided. Other industries were able to take away their customers not because the demand for transportation decreased (it actually increase), but because the railway business itself gave other s the opportunity of taking away their customers. The author states that the main reason for their decline was that they were product oriented instead of being customer oriented. Another example was of the Hollywood industry which concentrated on the movie business instead rather than providing entertainment to the viewers. This gave way to TV which was customer oriented and providing true entertainment to the viewers. These examples give a clear indication that being product oriented can prove to be very harmful for the company as a whole and may even force it to go out of business. There are hundreds of such examples that we see everyday and therefore, marketers as well as managers should make sure that the business adopts those strategies which are customer oriented instead of being product oriented. The main purpose of these examples is that the author wants to show the managers and marketers that a single approach of whether being product oriented or market oriented can affect their entire organization and it disregards all the other plans and work done by the management. If the marketer`s main focus is on the product and its attributes rather than on the customer and his needs, then the entire marketing program and strategies of the company as well as the hard work of the employees will of be of any use as the customers would not want such a product and they may be unwilling to buy it. As a result, there would be no sales and no profits for the company. Therefore, it is obvious that the best strategy for all the marketers and managers would be to design strategies which are focused on the needs and wants of customers and these strategies are objected towards building profitable customer relationships. The author focuses on profitable customer relationships because these relationships with the customers would be long term and therefore, the business would keep benefitting from such relationships for a long term. Customers would trust the organization as well as the market offerings of these organizations. This is related to the concept of branding and it explains the effect the brand name has on the decisions of customers (Marketing Myopia, Web). On the other hand, many authors contradict the main point of customer oriented strategies put forward by Theodore Levitt, by pointing out that being product oriented will not always affect a company negatively. They argue that only customer focused strategies should be for those businesses which require enhanced and direct customer interactions and not for those industries which are based on technological changes and other advances. They agree that short sightedness on part of the management is a major reason for the decline in many businesses and industries and they also argue that being product oriented is not always bad for a company. This article by Theodore Levitt was extremely well read, well accepted and was highly acknowledged by all the persons related to the field of marketing as well as other fields. Although a number of authors contradicted this article by writing opposing articles, this article proved to be a source of fame for the author and his name is now being included with marketing gurus such as Philip Kotler and other renowned marketers of the world. The main focus on customers portrayed by the author has proved to be effective in major businesses of the world. It is evident that majority of the successful businesses of the world are those which have created a strong brand name by focusing on customers and building profitable relationships with them. Works Cited: 1. Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Agnihotri, P. Y., & Haque, E. u. (2001). Marketing: Creating and capturing customer value. Principles of marketing (13th ed., p. 7). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. 2. Marketing Myopia. (n.d.). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved December 9, 2012, from http://hbr.org/2004/07/marketing-myopia/ar/1 Read More

 

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