Initially, the term ‘‘market myopia’’ was floated by the Theodor Levitt in the marketing paper. It was published in the ‘‘Harvard Business Review’’ in 1960, where he said that business can do better than just selling their products. His main contention was that the marketer should also focus on customer’s needs & satisfaction, not sales and stuffing customers with their products.
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What is Marketing Myopia?
Marketing myopia is the failure & narrow-minded approach of marketing management of a company; which only focuses on certain attributes of the product or service while completely ignoring the long terms goals such as product quality, customers need, demand and satisfaction.
Causes of Marketing Myopia
Now, the question is what causes marketers to adopt narrow-minded strategies and become marketing myopic. However, there are many causes of marketing myopia which may vary from company to company; some of the common causes of marketing myopia are as follows;
‘‘Companies Assume they are in a Growth Industry’’
It doesn’t happen overnight, instead, it takes time to build a reputation and establish the brand. But when a company achieves that status of being successful, then they become a leading growth industry in the market for a long time.
However, this notion of being invincible in the market makes them to falsely assume certain things like whatever they produce, it will sell. Because they are either lead producer or the only manufacturer in the market, instead of building a relationship with customers they just focus on their sale strategies.
‘‘Companies believe there are no Competitive Substitutes’’
When a company remains a sole producer in the market without any competitor, then they believe that things would stay the same forever and they will always be at the top. This self-deceiving belief makes them lazy, and they stop investing their resources in research and development to keep on getting better. In the end, a competitor comes in the market with unique features and takes the entire market share.
‘‘Failure to Consider the Requirements of the Consumer’’
One of the important causes is the failure to consider the requirement of customers as a part of their marketing strategy. They become so overconfident that they stop asking their customers, whether they want our product or not. As a result, the gap between the customer’s requirements and company product becomes so big; whenever a competitor enters the market. People just leave the marketing myopic brand immediately.
‘‘Focusing more on Products and not on Customers’’
The focus of market myopic companies is only on their product, not the needs and requirements of customers. They just keep on producing their products overlooking the demands of the market. Customers only buy their product is because they don’t have another choice.
‘’Failure to Consider Changing Consumer Lifestyle in the Digital Age’’
Technology doesn’t only provide us new products; it also changes our lifestyle along with those products and services by making us more leisure. When marketers don’t keep in mind the changing lifestyle of customers; their product becomes obsolete to meet the requirements of customers. Customers won’t buy any product which doesn’t meet their demands.
How to Avoid Marketing Myopia
There are many ways that the management of a company can avoid market myopia by doing the following steps;
- By designing the customer-oriented strategies
- Customer’s demand and need should be kept in mind
- Company’s product should be able to add some value in the customer’s life by solving their problems
- New ideas and approaches should be adopted
Examples of Marketing Myopia
Kodak
There was a time when Kodak’s cameras were at the peak of the market, they kept on producing the same types of cameras over the years. When Sony introduced its digital cameras in the market, Sony’s cameras were a huge success. Kodak’s cameras were kicked out from the market.
Blackberry
Blackberry’s phones had a 50% market share in the US and 20% world in 2006. When Smartphones were introduced in the market, blackberry’s market started declining. Today, blackberry holds 0% of the market in the smartphone industry.
Nokia
Back in early 2000 to 2006; Nokia’s button pad phones were at the top of the market and Nokia had the entire market share. Nokia didn’t change its product with the changing technology. In 2016, exactly 10 years later, Nokia’s phones were nowhere to be found in the market. Samsung and iPhones captured the whole market share which was once belonged to Nokia.
Entertainment
Video games, TV series, movies, showbiz, etc, nowadays, all of them fall into the category of entertainment. It is because all of them are targeting the same audience, instead of differentiating themselves from one another, they have decided to agree on one thing and which is to entertain their audience and work in collaboration.
