Marketing Myopia

The concept of Marketing Myopia was coined by the American Professor – “Theodore Levitt” in the year 1960. He says that Marketing Myopia is a short sighted, narrow minded view of marketing and its environment, it must be avoided at all costs. Marketing myopia is an inefficient marketing approach.

Basically, Marketing Myopia means lack of insight into a business from future perspective. Future includes long term planning of all strategies and actions towards encouraging and enhancing the business.

In this era marketing has become very important component of busines strategy and business growth. Gone are the days when manufacturers were the king of the market. Today, customer is a king of the market, customer is today’s focus.

Marketing myopia strikes in because each time there’s a start of any new business – short term goals are given more importance than long term goals. And to turn any business into successful the most important concept is foresight – where would you like to see your business in another 10-15 years and not just 2-3 years down the line.

Few examples of Marketing Myopia:

  1. Kodak: There was a time when Kodak was at the peak of the market for cameras but launch of Sony’s digital camera kicked off well settled brand.
  2. Blackberry: Sometime back in the year 2006, Blackberry had a market share of 20% but when smartphones entered the market – Blackberry’s market share started declining resulting into 0% market share.
Firms that focuses only on production and manufacturing tend to develop a narrow or short-sighted view of market. Most business sees customers as a homogeneous group – which will satisfy the basic need.