What is Marketing Myopia? Definition of Marketing Myopia, Marketing Myopia Meaning and Concept

Marketing myopia is the mistake that companies make when they focus solely on the features of the products or services they offer without taking into account the needs of the customers to whom those articles are directed.

Ted Levitt, economist and professor at Harvard University, refers to this concept in his article "Marketing myopi" in the Harvard Business Review, where he highlights the mistake that businesses make in their beginnings by not taking into account the needs of customers. which leads to future problems in companies.

According to Levitt, consumers present a series of needs and problems, these being the objectives that companies must address to create articles that satisfy these deficiencies.

Examples of marketing myopia

Some examples of marketing myopia are:

1. The Kodak case: The photo manufacturers saw no enemies or competition in the mobile phones that began to take digital photos. They were reluctant to abandon analog photography, which led to a crisis in the sector. They realized that these items satisfied the need of customers to digitally immortalize images in the moment, so they had to adapt their products to what the public was asking for.
2. The film industry: When the use of the Internet began to gain importance among users, the film industry refused to adapt its products to this format without taking into account the needs of the public that began to browse daily, download illegally and watch films. It was a shock and they had to adapt their works to this medium. Nowadays it is already possible to watch movies and many premieres are made on the Internet.
3. The music industry: The classic vinyl records were the usual products of these companies. When the need for people to listen to music while playing sports or traveling appeared, items that met these needs appeared, but big brands like sony were initially reluctant to assess the needs that users required and adapt their products to them. Currently products such as mp4, ipod have facilitated these needs that customers demanded.

In short, the myopia of marketing has meant that many leading companies lost customers by not finding the products they needed to meet their needs. Thus, firms have had to adapt their articles while users resorted to the competition to acquire them since they could not find them in important brands that were reluctant to value what the public requested.