What is marketing myopia and how to avoid it
Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2025 9:43 am
Marketing myopia is a situation where a company focuses too much on its products or services instead of focusing on the needs and wants of its customers. This can lead to a lack of innovation and a narrow view of market opportunities.
The concept originated with the classic article “Marketing Myopia” (Harvard Business Review), by Theodore Levitt , written 60 years ago. He says that the lack of long-term success of a company is due to poor management, which does not focus on customer satisfaction and, as a result, has its growth threatened and stagnated.
For Levitt, another administrative management error in modern corporations is the inability to define a branch for their business. Organizations that do not accurately identify their mission do not achieve a competitive advantage and are unlikely to be pioneers in the market.
Since the company focuses only on malta phone number list selling the product, but does not care about what happens before, during and after a sale, it will be seen in a generic way by society. This is marketing myopia.
Examples of cases of myopia in marketing
kodak-myopia-in-marketing
Kodak
For years, Kodak was the leading brand in photography. The pioneer accounted for 80% of camera sales and 90% of film sales in the 1970s.
The company failed to keep up with the digital revolution, maintaining its strategy of focusing on film and prints. As a result, it lost market share to competitors riding the digital camera wave, such as Fujifilm, and went bankrupt in 2012.
Blockbuster
For many years , Blockbuster was a leading company in the video rental industry, reaching several countries around the world.
Despite being a well-known company and still having emotional value for its former consumers, who enjoyed the experience of renting videos, Blockbuster focused more on products and services than on paying attention to new market needs.
With the advancement of the digital era, it did not adapt to new consumer trends and was overtaken by the wave of streaming, giving way to market space for companies like Netflix and being forced to abandon the business.
How does this relate to a company's branding?
In the 27th episode of the RaiseTheBAR podcast , from The Foursales Company, Marcela Rezende, Vice President of Marketing, Branding and Communication at MadeiraMadeira, talks about the best practices of global brands and addresses the importance of branding for the expansion and value of a business.
As an example of a case that didn't work out, she cites the story of Kodak, which let its branding die due to its lack of updating its business with the current world situation, in terms of technology and competition. This is because they were only concerned with selling.
Marcela states that a high-performance company has a well-structured branding, based on its vision, mission, purpose and values. In this way, it is possible to build constant, frequent, useful and humanized communication, which makes all the difference in the way the consumer perceives the brand.
Nowadays, it is common for many organizations to fail to communicate what their customers are actually looking for in terms of information. You need to be careful that your message does not reach only one layer of the sales funnel and fail to convey important ideas, in addition to putting customer satisfaction in the background. This is also short-sighted.
The concept originated with the classic article “Marketing Myopia” (Harvard Business Review), by Theodore Levitt , written 60 years ago. He says that the lack of long-term success of a company is due to poor management, which does not focus on customer satisfaction and, as a result, has its growth threatened and stagnated.
For Levitt, another administrative management error in modern corporations is the inability to define a branch for their business. Organizations that do not accurately identify their mission do not achieve a competitive advantage and are unlikely to be pioneers in the market.
Since the company focuses only on malta phone number list selling the product, but does not care about what happens before, during and after a sale, it will be seen in a generic way by society. This is marketing myopia.
Examples of cases of myopia in marketing
kodak-myopia-in-marketing
Kodak
For years, Kodak was the leading brand in photography. The pioneer accounted for 80% of camera sales and 90% of film sales in the 1970s.
The company failed to keep up with the digital revolution, maintaining its strategy of focusing on film and prints. As a result, it lost market share to competitors riding the digital camera wave, such as Fujifilm, and went bankrupt in 2012.
Blockbuster
For many years , Blockbuster was a leading company in the video rental industry, reaching several countries around the world.
Despite being a well-known company and still having emotional value for its former consumers, who enjoyed the experience of renting videos, Blockbuster focused more on products and services than on paying attention to new market needs.
With the advancement of the digital era, it did not adapt to new consumer trends and was overtaken by the wave of streaming, giving way to market space for companies like Netflix and being forced to abandon the business.
How does this relate to a company's branding?
In the 27th episode of the RaiseTheBAR podcast , from The Foursales Company, Marcela Rezende, Vice President of Marketing, Branding and Communication at MadeiraMadeira, talks about the best practices of global brands and addresses the importance of branding for the expansion and value of a business.
As an example of a case that didn't work out, she cites the story of Kodak, which let its branding die due to its lack of updating its business with the current world situation, in terms of technology and competition. This is because they were only concerned with selling.
Marcela states that a high-performance company has a well-structured branding, based on its vision, mission, purpose and values. In this way, it is possible to build constant, frequent, useful and humanized communication, which makes all the difference in the way the consumer perceives the brand.
Nowadays, it is common for many organizations to fail to communicate what their customers are actually looking for in terms of information. You need to be careful that your message does not reach only one layer of the sales funnel and fail to convey important ideas, in addition to putting customer satisfaction in the background. This is also short-sighted.