An age-old product that has been developed for decades can easily be replaced by a more innovative one in a few years. For years, Kodak was the leading name in photography. The only way they can avert becoming obsolete is to resist the urge to focus on their own internal goals and instead focus on the consumers needs. Meanwhile, Nokia failed to budge and kept its overly complex operating system as it was until 2011. When a business is experiencing bountiful expansion and record sales, it might easily ignore the "undetected decay," as Theodore Levitt put it. -the belief that winning absolves all other sin. Even if your marketing strategy is working well, it doesnt mean you shouldnt work on optimization. On the topic of stability, marketing myopia often occurs to companies with the best intentions in mind. -Need fan awareness, social media must be at a premium. Experimentation is one of the few ways to appeal to consumers refreshingly. They couldnt get their business model or message right and went bust in two years. The glut in supply resulted in the shoes ending up on the sales rack. You may wear a suit to an important meeting. Marketing Myopia is the title of a marketing paper written by Theodore Levitt that was published in the Harvard Business Review in 1960. One way to stay on top of your game is by keeping up with others in your industry. So, how did a business that dominated 50% of the United States' home rental market crumble in such a dramatic fashion? Some marketers went too far with Levitt's influence, with a narrow fixation on the consumer. It suffered from marketing myopia because it fooled its customers in the hopes of short term gain. Marketing Myopia is a seminal piece published in 1960 by the Harvard Business Review. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. They may be reluctant to change their products or services, even when it is clear that customer needs have changed. Thats not to say it doesnt have its limits. Updated: 09/06/2021 Just a few years ago, Juicero received millions of dollars from investors and was considered a Silicon Valley darling. But by 2009, the company had filed for bankruptcy. They neglect the needs and wants of their customers and fail as a result. Kodak would refuse to allow its cameras to take pictures with anything but film until it was too late. By the time 2014 rolled in, Nokia's marketing myopia had finally cleared, and it embraced Android as it should have years passed. But what about your long-term plan? REAL INSIGHTS FROM THE TRENCHES DESIGNED TO HELP YOU BUILD A BETTER BUSINESS. Entertainment Flexibility is essential for any business strategy, and proactively dealing with challenges is critical. Fast-forward to the mid-2000s, Netflix surpassed Blockbuster as lord of the rental market with a 36% share. Some happen over time. Suddenly, competitors like future industry giants like Huawei, Samsung, and Motorola eagerly adopted Android. The primary product in the sports apparel industry is athletic wear. Theodore Levitt's contribution to marketing was an invaluable one. . Learn how your comment data is processed. Durable Goods This surveillance lets you calculate how to best competitors offerings and pull more customers. Success! Netflix launched its novel DVD renting practice in 1998, halfway through the dot-com boom. Sites like Crayon, SEMrush, and Kompyte are great tools to help you leverage this intelligence into actionable insights to propel your company forward. The phrase was coined in 1960 by Theodore C. Levitt. Then there is the consumers' present expectation of a written piece. Blackberry Take This Course By Wharton University , Click Here For A Course In Buyer Persona Creation , The Future Of Sales: 50+ Social Selling Statistics (2023 Edition), The 15 Best Salesforce Integrations For Sales, Marketing, HR & SMBs, 130+ Hubspot Statistics For Modern Marketers In 2023, Exploring Enterprise Form Solutions: A Comprehensive Guide for Business Owners, Top 17 Gamification Software In 2023 (Free & Paid), TikTok Monetization: How To Make Money On TikTok, 21 Best Microsoft Teams Alternatives (Free & Paid), Ensure that the research attached to your product is, While a third-party eco-certification for your products. We each have a job we want to get done when we buy a product or service. BlockBuster In the early 2000s, Blockbuster was the undisputed king of the video rental industry. Let's look at some real-life examples of marketing myopia you might recognize. When a business overemphasizes selling, it can easily fall into the marketing myopia trap at the cost of marketing research and action. When Sony introduced its digital cameras in the market, Sony's cameras were a huge success. The ones who tried were bought or run into the ground. The Curry 2 shoes had poor sales because the company flooded the market with the product. There is no doubt that Levitt believed the entire corporation must be viewed as a customer-creating and customer-satisfying organism, and Deighton admits that this is one of the potential pitfalls of Levitts original idea: it puts great trust in the consumer. In his original article, Levitt acknowledged how difficult it can be to listen to customers; he wrote: Consumers are unpredictable, varied, fickle, stupid, shortsighted, stubborn, and generally bothersome. But Smith, Drumwright, and Gentile go even further, arguing that its not just about listening to consumers but about hearing all of the stakeholders who contribute to your companys success, such as employees, suppliers, shareholders, competitors, media, and community members. During the 90s, Nokia had looked at various countries' cellular usage and capitalized on trends in Asia and Europe. Why is this? As a result of this apparent series of wins, managers can become lazily satisfied. Examples: Success 1) PEPSI Pepsi-cola is a good example where Marketing Myopia is absent. Producing products in large quantities (mass production) without knowing consumer demand in the market. To avoid locking horns with your new allies, a disciplined and focused level of courtesy should be maintained. While you could simply keep your head down and ignore the other side, assessing your competition would be a better strategy. All that matters to them is their customer demands. Its an intermediate step between interacting with their brand and becoming a customer. Deighton points to an example close to home for this writer: the publishing industry. -Winning doesn't guarantee rise in attendance. Blockbuster had tried to imitate Netflix's DVD-by-mail strategy only too late and was eventually delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in 2010. Therefore you have to think about marketing, Deighton explains. This brings up the age-old debate of selling vs. marketing. Below are some examples which put forward the phenomenon of Marketing Myopia and how can companies look beyond it. Our following example of marketing myopia involves a company that, despite having invented digital photography, would eventually be destroyed by it. Its pretty simple. It said the packs needed to be squeezed under high pressure only the juicing machine could produce. The term was coined by the late Harvard Business School marketing professor, Theodore Levitt, in a 1960 article by the same name (republished in 2004). Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies. Marketing myopia remains an important reminder of the risks your company runs if you dont pay close attention to your consumers needs. It doesnt matter if youre doing a hundred dollars a year in revenue or a hundred million a year in revenue. Marketing Myopia - Free download as Powerpoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or view presentation slides online. Small businesses leaders can use the following strategy to ensure that their operations remain as relevant and exciting as possible. Deighton points to IBM Interactive Experience, IBMs consultancy that combines analytics, design, and technology (and brings in $2 billion in revenue) as an attempt to think past what they produce and say, were not in the business of information processing, were delivering the communications that are valued by consumers.. Sadly for the Finnish dinosaur, this decision was too little, too late. Then, you can reissue an optimized product or service in your next launch. The business world is developing so quickly that any company holding onto the past is bound to join it. They want to be entertained, informed, stimulated, by people more interesting than their friends and acquaintances, he argues. Define marketing myopia and give four (4) examples in the current sport industry. This can happen when businesses focus too much on their own products and services and not enough on what customers are actually looking for. Now, Shiseido execs had an intimate viewpoint for observing and imitating the trendiest French icons of the time. As Deighton explains. Instead, he was all about provoking people to think differently. In fact, Deighton still uses the concept frequently when he introduces what marketing is to business school students. We're committed to your privacy. The following section will detail how you and your business can ensure that you never become irrelevant or outdated in the market. But as the marketplace changed, Old Spice recognized that there was an opportunity to reach a wider audience. As the term suggests, marketing myopia is a lack of marketing foresight. Like any religion, marketing myopia was bound to have its heretics. Companies like Nokia, Kodak, and Blockbusters believed that their products would always be desirable. Entertaining and motivating original stories to help move your visions forward. Learn how to communicate with your customersstrategically. Another one of IBM's fascinating services is the IBM Interactive Experience (IBM iX), which is the company's consulting branch. Of course, its not all doom and gloom for the restaurant industry. During its most successful years, oil was cheap but there was no incentive to develop products that meet the needs of its customers or deliver top tier service. As the urban world began to develop, trains stopped being the primary mode of transport, and the railway business suffered greatly. Marketing itself is the field in which research is conducted into how the market can best be conquered and where customers also remain customers through repeat purchases and related products. Now, your customers want planes. Curry 1 shoes had sold out and faced with the possibility of being able to sell the shoes out again; executives decided to overproduce the product. Worse, Antioco believed that he was in charge of the film rental industry when, in reality, he dominated VHS tapes, which were rapidly falling out of favor. Marketing myopia can affect any business, regardless of its size. Suddenly, the technology that Kodak's leadership had spurned was starting to make waves with consumers. The company has lost sight of what business they are really in. #2. This is all to say that keeping your finger on the pulse is key to avoiding a myopic business. Marketing myopia is a term that describes the need for businesses to future-proof their products or services' usefulness instead of merely focusing on selling said offerings. At a certain point, an industry will stop developing and begin to stagnate. -confusion between promotions and marketing. The article stated that three former Under Armour executives said that decisions around products were often driven by instinct, rather than consumer analysis of the market. Competition is an unavoidable part of business, and a smaller market means that consumer attention is harder to grab. A company like STMicroelectronics honed in on Western Digital and Seagate to create tactical partnerships. The key difference was that while Symbian operated through its devices, iOS and Android were app-based. The genius of the original article is that it is so easy to be myopic when it comes to marketing, says Deighton. This cost-cutting selling point, coupled with packaging proudly displaying Energy Star stickers, resulted in a 12% sale boost for Phillips. A daily dose of irreverent and informative takes on business & tech news, Turn marketing strategies into step-by-step processes designed for success, Spotlighting bold Black women entrepreneurs who have scaled from side hustles to profitable businesses, For B2B reps and sales teams who want to turn complete strangers into paying customers, Get productivity tips and business hacks to design your dream career, Free ebooks, tools, and templates to help you grow, Learn the latest business trends from leading experts with HubSpot Academy, All of HubSpot's marketing, sales CRM, customer service, CMS, and operations software on one platform. Nurture and grow your business with customer relationship management software. Successful companies focus on customer needs, not their own products and services, which canand willbe replaced by competitive alternatives, either ones they make themselves or those produced by existing or potential competitors. The Japanese cosmetics brands competitors were gaining more consumer loyalty thanks to their exclusive perfume products. Instead, you should connect with your customers to the point that you can easily predict how they would behave. Avoiding marketing myopia takes some work and additional research. Six years after EarthLight's dim 1994 launch, Philips rebooted its energy-saving lightbulb with a different name and design in 2000. The jeans you wear for each occasion are different. The transportation industry was soon flooded with air travel and other more convenient forms of public transportation. Let's look at the factors that knocked Nokia out. Its not that the companies werent innovating they were. We discussed Levitt's self-deceiving cycle earlier. Some industries might better be described as unstable than fluid, however. To clear your definition and start again with a white sheet can make or break a company. According to Theodore Levitt, "There is no such thing as a growth industry." We must focus on them and their needs. -Arrogance and laziness. But Netflix did, and it was doing incredibly well. As our attention spans begin to shorten as a species, journalists must find ways to better hold the average readers' attention. Now, its part of a niche movement and most people cant be bothered. Take heed of customer complaints and suggestions. First, customers become dissatisfied with an aspect of the product or service delivery. Competitive intelligence is the practice of monitoring and gathering data on your competitors through legal and ethical means. Those who failed to realize this shift was necessary and relied solely on prior success likely experienced great financial loss. The company focused on film and prints, even as its customer base shifted to digital. -Poor sales and service. Deighton says that the best way for leaders to answer that question is by asking themselves another: What are we really doing for the customer? That is not to say that Kodak didn't work in the digital department. Give an example of marketing myopia that you have seen. According to Levitt, businesses should address the practical aspects of their product in a societal context, rather than merely trying to sell things as best as possible. A company struck by marketing myopia will often see its consumer base gradually (or even quickly) shift to another product or service. While international cooperation can be incredibly beneficial, it also runs the risk of running into contention. Find out where your product or service could be improved, and make those changes. Blockbuster execs ignored Netflix, believing that its online or telephonic booking system would never take off. Rather, segment them into different groups based on demographic qualities, psychographic qualities, or even behavioral markers. Netflix simply made Blockbuster's services obsolete. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult time for business. The problem with this strategy is that most consumers in the sports apparel industry are not professional athletes.
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