Marketing Myopia is Defining Your Business by Product Instead of Need

Marketing myopia, a term coined by Theodore Levitt, is the grave and often suicidal error of defining a business by the product it produces rather than the customer need it satisfies.

Companies suffering from marketing myopia become so focused on improving their existing product that they fail to see when a new technology or solution emerges that can satisfy the underlying customer need in a better way.

Examples of Marketing Myopia:

• Railroads: They thought they were in the railroad business, not the transportation business. They were displaced by cars, trucks, and airplanes.
• Hollywood: They thought they were in the movie business, not the entertainment business. They initially scorned and rejected television, which they should have welcomed as a massive new distribution channel.
• Vacuum Tubes: They were focused on making better vacuum tubes and were made obsolete by the transistor.
• Mainframe Computers: Most mainframe companies missed the minicomputer, and most minicomputer companies missed the personal computer.

Customer needs endure, but the products and technologies used to satisfy those needs change. A company that is not constantly searching for better ways to serve its customers' needs, even if it means making its own current products obsolete, is suffering from marketing myopia and is vulnerable to being displaced.