The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Myopia

by Martin Luenendonk March 22, 2017

Myopia – perhaps some of you may be familiar with this term but you may be wondering, how does
it relate to marketing? For those of you who do not know, myopia describes the phenomenon of
distant objects appearing very blurry. Some people just call it nearsightedness. So when you hear the
word “Marketing Myopia”, what comes to mind? Is it the shortsightedness of marketing tactics?
Failure to see the long-term goals of marketing schemes? Well the answer is yes and no. It is a little
more complex and multi-layered than that description.

Marketing Myopia is the title of a marketing paper written by Theodore Levitt that was published in
the Harvard Business Review in 1960. According to the writer, businesses will do better in the end if
they focus their attention on meeting customers’ needs rather than on selling products.

This brings up the age-old debate of selling vs. marketing. Many people conflate the two terms.
Selling is concerned with the needs of the seller and/or manufacturer whereas marketing is more
concerned with satisfying the needs of the buyer and client. When you are selling, you are putting
your efforts into creating the best product on the market (according to you) that will appeal to the
broad spectrum of the target audience. When you are marketing, you are taking what you have made
(not necessarily perfect) and tailoring it to appeal to a particular customer’s needs.

Many businesses put far too much emphasis what they are creating and selling but fail to look at the
bigger picture – what do my clients actually want? Marketing Myopia is deals with the shortsighted
nature of many companies who start strong but end up failing at the end. These companies seem to
concentrate so much on immediate short-term gains that they lose sight of making profits and
benefits in the long run.

To give you a better idea of what Marketing Myopia is, we have compiled an extensive guide for you
that goes over several talking points of marketing. By the end of this, we hope to have clarified the
mystery of marketing and made you open your eyes a little bit wider to see the bigger picture of
long-term gains.

MARKETING MYOPIA

Every year, thousands of products are launched, with a vast majority of them failing and never living
to see the light of success. Levitt’s argument in his article was that companies sometimes take a
narrow-minded approach to marketing, making only short-term goals and thinking about themselves
and their products/services more than the needs and wants of their consumers.
This results in companies failing to adapt to the market and it causes them to always play catch-up
with the trends of the market. Instead, companies should clearly define their products by catering to
the target audience and addressing their wants and needs rather than their own. Companies need to
have a clear vision by being customer-oriented, always prioritizing the demands of the market above
everything else.

Theodore Levitt’s Marketing Myopia primarily uses the petroleum industry to describe the problems
of nearsightedness in marketing. We will touch upon this particular case in an example in this article
but we will also provide other examples from other industries to show more instances of
shortsightedness in marketing by companies that have failed to adapt.

We will look at various causes of marketing myopia below and give various examples to
demonstrate how they can be very detrimental to any business.

CAUSES OF MARKETING MYOPIA

There are plenty of reasons for companies to focus on the shortsighted nature of selling and
experience its negative effects, rather than look at the longsighted nature of marketing. Suffering
from this phenomenon is usually indicative of poor management. Good management will generally
not look at things in short-term gains but instead look toward the long-term benefits. We will talk
about this later.

For now, let’s have a look at some of the causes of shortsighted marketing.

Companies assume they are in a Growth Industry

What is a growth industry? Let’s look at some definitions of this term before we scrutinize and
dissect it.

“A growth industry is an expanding sector of an economy, or one growing much faster in

comparison to the overall economy. It is also called a sunrise industry. It is the opposite of a mature
industry.” – Business Dictionary

“A growth industry is the sector of the economy experiencing a higher-than-normal growth rate.
Growth industries are often associated with new or pioneer industries that did not exist in the past
and their growth is related to the consumer demand for new product or services offered by firms
within the same industry.” – Investopedia

In essence, a business is doing extremely well in the economy and growing rapidly because it is
doing something revolutionary or is pioneering the future can be considered to be in a growth
industry. Well, at least the company thinks so. With the following example, you will clearly see why
companies who assume that their product or service is the be-all and end-all of solutions usually
shoot themselves in the foot.

Example – Dry Cleaning

While it may be hard to believe this in the year 2016, the dry cleaning business was actually once
considered to be a growth industry with lavish prospects. In the mid-20th century, where most people
wore garments made of wool, it was a wonderful and pleasant feeling of getting your garments safely
and easily cleaned. At the time, it was really a lifesaver. Yet here we are in the 21st century and
nobody is really talking about the dry cleaning industry. Why is that? Was there a better way of
cleaning?

Well, yes and no. The decline in dry cleaning came from the fact that clothes were now being made
with alternative materials, such as cotton and polyester. Not many people wear suits made from wool
anymore; many now wear t-shirts and clothes made from synthetic fibers or cotton, making them
much easier to wash with water. Laundry has become very common nowadays and is much cheaper
with a wider application range.

Did the dry cleaning companies fail to see the trend of clothing? Did they fail by concentrating solely
on cleaning wool garments? They were very shortsighted in their cleaning approach, only targeting
wool garments but not aiming for cleaning all clothes. They did not adapt to the market and create
laundries for customers to wash their non-wool clothes. Dry cleaners were soon challenged by
laundries all over the world and these laundries have now taken over the garments cleaning industry.

The Truth of Growth Industries

Levitt famously said, “The reality of the matter is that there is no such thing as a growth industry.
There are only companies organized and operated to create and capitalize on growth opportunities.”

Many industries assume that they are on a sort of growth escalator but they always end up falling
from their high seat. When you look at the history and statistics or every dying growth industry, there
is a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay.

Companies believe there are no Competitive Substitutes

Many companies ride their early success, never imagining how rapidly their business will grow in a
short span of time. This is very apparent in the railroad industry in the early 20th century. The
following example will illustrate how companies that fail to define their business and neglect the
possibility of substitutes are ultimately caught off guard.

Example – Railroads and Trains

The railroad lines are a classic case study presented by Levitt himself. The companies that were
manufacturing trains fell into a steep decline because they thought they were in the rail business, but
failed to realize they were actually in the transportation business. They were transporting people and
freight across the country. Trains were a means of getting from point A to point B. In the early 20th
century, it was the most reliable and viable option. However, there were alternative means of
transportation being offered by other companies, such as cars and trucks.

Many railroad companies specifically branded their companies as being the best train manufacturers
and kept on improving the speed and quality of their trains. Instead of branching out into other
modes of transportation, such as cars, trucks, and airplanes, they allowed themselves to be
superseded by other companies who were progressive thinking and provided more advanced means
of transportation. By the mid-20th century, airplanes became more commonplace and nowadays, it is
the preferred mode of travel if you want to journey very long distances in a short amount of time.

Had the railroad companies adapted to the advancement in technology in transportation, they would
have entered the vehicle market or the airplane market. Alas, they did not. We are not saying that the
train industry is a dying one. It is perhaps not as popular or thriving as the plane industry or the
automobile industry, but it is still alive and kicking. However, we would like to point out that those
companies had the chance to combat the competitors by entering those markets, too.

Diversifying your operations may not seem intuitive all the time, but it keeps you current and makes
your company relevant on all grounds. This is a classic case describing that you either must adapt to
the times by satisfying your customers or get cast to the wayside by your competitors.

Failure to Consider the Requirements of the Consumer

Oftentimes, companies put a ton of effort, time, and money into their own products without
considering the needs and desires of their consumers. Levitt said that instead of being business-
centered, organizations should always be customer-oriented in order to win in the long run and
survive in the market.

Rather than saying, “We are making the best kind of product on the market so it will surely appeal to
consumers,” you should be asking yourself, “How can we address the problems of our consumers?”
Looking outward instead of inward is save you from being shortsighted by your own ambitions. For
any business, it should be clear that the end consumers are always the most important assets and you
must cater to what they want in order to stay relevant.

Let’s look at an example of how a once famous company known for manufacturing mobile phones
was quickly superseded by competitors.
Example – Nokia’s Fall from Grace

Not too long ago, back in the early 2000s, if you had asked people what phones they were using, they
would have almost invariably said Nokia. Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer, was the
market share leader in their industry, releasing a variety of models every year, coming in various
shapes and sizes. They made phones that allowed you to make phone calls, send texts, and even
listen to music on the go. They introduced color displays, too. All of that sounds quite good, right?
You would think that nothing could go wrong, but you thought wrong.

In January 2007, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, the first smartphone from Apple. It garnered
plenty of media attention and hype because it was touted to be “a computer in your pocket, a smart
device in the palm of your hands.” Initially, nobody thought they wanted a computer in their pockets.
You cannot blame them really. Computers just a decade ago were quite bulky.

However, the promise of integration and simplicity is what people loved about the idea of a
smartphone. Later that year, the iPhone was officially launched and as we all know, the rest is
history. Apple took the mobile phone market by storm and many companies were already releasing
their smartphones at around the same time. Companies like Samsung and Sony come to mind. Now
there are other major Chinese smartphone manufacturers, such as HTC and One Plus, which are
growing in popularity. However, there is one name missing – Nokia.

Nokia failed to address the problems that users were experiencing with their phones. Many reported
that the software was very sluggish and the keypads were difficult to type on. Nokia had long
ignored these issues and continued rolling out phones year in and year out. Granted, they were doing
well for a number of years but ever since the later part of the last decade, they have not enjoyed
anywhere near the same level of success. They failed to adopt Android, a modern and sleek operating
system by Google, or even create their own to compete with Apple’s iOS.

For a long time now, Nokia has been chasing the pack up ahead, still trying to find out how to get on
the good side of consumers.

Focusing more on Products and not on Customers

The biggest problem plaguing companies is focusing entirely on mass production. A company will
presume that since they have been performing so well, they can simply manufacture a large volume
of products without tailoring them to the needs of the consumers. There is a lesson to be learnt here –
always solve problems first, then go for mass production.
According to the theory of mass production, you will be able to drive the unit cost down by
producing more units. While that may be true, that is only fruitful if you can actually sell what you
are producing. Imagine having a large inventory of products that you believe are exceptional and you
fully believe that people will love them when they see it. You have totally neglected marketing and
put too much attention on production.

Marketing is one of the key pillars of success for any company. If you fail to see the bigger picture
(how am I actually helping my customers with my products and/or services?), then you will simply
make a large volume of goods that serve no purpose to the end consumers. Mass production
promotes selling, but it does not look at the more important aspect of marketing.

We have stated this before, and we cannot stress enough how important it is to know the difference
between selling and marketing. This is the key difference a subpar company and a very successful
one. Many companies fall under the illusion that their needs are more important than those of the
consumers. That is exactly why those companies fail. If you look at all the successful tech
companies, like Google, Facebook, and Samsung, they strive to put the needs of the customer first.

Let’s look at an example where mass production has utterly failed.

Example – The Detroit Automobile Industry

In the very northern region of the United States of America lies a city famous for its automobile
industry – Detroit, Michigan. The American automobile industry is famous because of several car
manufacturers having plants in this city, e.g., Ford and Cadillac. We would argue that they are rather
infamous for being the perpetrators of mass production.

These companies assumed that they had to pump out a certain number of cars every year and that a
vast majority of them would sell. That was true for a time, until many cars were imported from
overseas, namely Japan, and then consumers had more options on their hands.

American car manufacturers generally did not put too much effort on reducing fuel consumption. For
them, the horsepower was very important and while they did have that edge over their competitors,
many consumers did not care too much about that. American cars are known to be gas-guzzlers,
burning a large amount of fuel. Consumers wanted to save money on fuel and they knew that the
Japanese cars were much more fuel-efficient than the American ones. From an economic point of
view, the customers naturally wanted to buy cars that saved them money on oil.
This perfectly demonstrates the failure of American companies in conducting market research prior
to producing the goods. We will talk about market research in depth later in the article but we do
want to note that many of these companies from Detroit made some very false assumptions.

They assumed their cars were selling well based on the sales volume and revenue. However, they
never assessed it against their competitor’s sales revenue and volume back in their home country.
This led to a major collapse in the automobile industry in Detroit that the city is still suffering from.
On the other hand, Japan is thriving and flourishing in the automobile industry.

Failure to Consider Changing Consumer Lifestyle in the Digital Age

Another point to mention that catches many companies off guard is that they seem to fail to predict
how the future will be. They fail to notice the changing consumer lifestyle in this digital age. They
do not see the trends of the market, and this puts many companies in a precarious situation, thinking
it would be safe to not worry so much about the future and focus only on the present situation of
things.

This leaves many companies wide open for competitors to swoop in and steal your customers right
from under your nose, all because you did not future-proof your brand.

Failure of management is evident when an organization fails to foresee where the market will head in
10 years. 10 years is actually too long. Some companies cannot predict where the market will be
headed even after 5 years! In today’s landscape, you need to be able to determine where the market
is going in just 2 years! Trust us when we say that the market can be very erratic. You need to have a
handle on what will happen just a couple of years later.

Here is an example highlighting a company failing to consider the change in consumer lifestyle.

Example – The Death of the Sony Walkman

In the late 1990s, Sony released the CD Walkman, a portable music player that was an upgrade from
the traditional cassette tape Walkman. In the 90s, CDs were gaining popularity and Sony wanted to
double down on this invention and create a portable music player that could play CDs. They were
already popular with cassette tapes, and now they were even appealing to people listening to music
on CDs. Even in the early 2000s, Sony continued to sell Walkman. However, this is where a
competitor came into the market and shook things up.

In the year 2001, Apple launched the iPod, a portable music player that housed digital music files on
a tiny device. That was unheard of at the time. To be able to listen to music that exist as digital files
on a tiny player without the need for physical media was a revolutionary concept.
Everybody knew how to rip music from a music CD, but there was no viable options of putting it on
a portable device dedicated to playing music. Apple launched their product and Sony lost all of its
momentum. Sony still had players relying on physical media, so their Walkman were large and
bulky. On the other hand, the iPod was very small and lightweight, appealing to everybody.

This shows that Sony failed to see the trend of listening to music digitally instead of carrying around
tapes and CDs. In the technology, it is more important than ever to foresee the shift in customer
behavior. If you cannot predict how customers will use technology to perform activities, then you
will never be able to create products and services that take advantage of those technologies. The
Walkman is a good example of that.

The Myth of an Ever-Expanding Population

There is an age-old belief held by many industries that if the population continues to perpetually
expand and becomes more affluent with the world economy improving, your market has naturally
increased with more customers willing to pay. Companies have a false sense of security and do not
worry much about the future if this assumption is indeed true.

The keyword here is ‘IF’. If consumers are multiplying and they are able to buy more of your goods,
then you have almost nothing to worry about in the future. The view that the market does not shrink
but keeps on expanding is prevalent in some industries.
According to Levitt, if a market continues to expand, then there is practically no responsibility on the
side of an organization to innovate and improve their product or service. With an increasing
population, there is the illusion of no problems, arising from an increasing market, which leads to a
lack of thinking to enhance products.

Here is an example to show how falling for this trap can backfire and explode right in your face.

Example – Oil and Gas Companies

A very good example presented by Levitt to demonstrate the problem of relying on an increasing
market size is considering oil and gas companies. These presumed to call themselves energy
providers, providing non-renewable energy for people all over the world. While this was true for
quite a number of years, there have been alternative sources of energy, such as nuclear energy, which
are far more efficient. More importantly, there are renewable energy sources, like solar energy and
wind energy, which are far more environmental friendly than their non-renewable counterpart.

Oil and gas companies continue to live off petroleum, and that will surely not last for long. Sure, the
population is increasing and more people need energy but the raw material, petroleum, is diminishing
every year. Studies have shown that based on the current rate of consumption and the amount of
existing petroleum sources, we can live off oil and gas energy for about another century.

Not a long time at all. Many oil and gas companies simply focus their complete time, efforts, and
money on refining the extraction process and finding ways of making it more efficient. That simply
improves the product but it fails to address the bigger issue of diminishing raw materials and
customers wanting to shift to renewable energy for health reasons.

Consumers are more aware of the damage caused by energy production from fossil fuels and want to
use alternative, environmental friendly sources of energy. In addition to having their homes powered
by solar and wind energy, people now want their cars to be running on electricity instead of fuel. We
can see Tesla taking advantage of this and disrupting the automobile market with their electric cars.
SolarCity, a partner company of Tesla, is planning to run houses entirely on solar energy.

Many oil and gas companies did not foresee the future of alternative, renewable energy sources and
are now facing many issues. There are more people in this world and they are perhaps getting richer,
but they do not want fossil fuel energy due to its harmful side effects.

If these companies fail to diversify their energy generation options, then they will fail to be in that
industry. In fact, we can see it happening now in several European countries where they rely much
more on renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, than on traditional ones. The US
has not yet fully adapted these alternative energy sources but very soon, it will. When it does, then
two of the largest and most powerful markets will be unavailable to oil and gas companies. This is
the consequence of being unwilling to change.

Excessive Dependence on Research and Development

When it comes to companies specifically in the high-tech sector, they tend to rely heavily on
research and development to create new and innovate products for consumers. When it comes to
technology and engineering, the name of the game is innovation. We agree that it is necessary for a
tech company to invent new things if they want to thrive but it must be done with the right intentions
and motives.

Many companies conduct a ton of research in labs and ask themselves, “What can we make that
people will want to buy and use?” Instead, they should be asking themselves, “What do our
customers want to buy and use?” These two questions are vastly different. The former is more
concerned with what a company can do to make a superior product or the ‘next big thing’ whereas
the latter is more concerned with finding out what consumers actually want. The former is product-
oriented and the latter is customer-oriented. If there is one thing you take out of this entire report,
your business must be customer-oriented to avoid experiencing marketing myopia.

If the top management of an organization includes many scientists and engineers, then they will most
likely be in favor of dealing with controllable variables. Engineers love the defined nature of
machines, production lines, and balance sheets. However, the market is not so well defined.
Customers are very unpredictable, fickle, and varied, always changing their minds with what they
really like and want. To this end, many engineers ignore this and focus only on the definite variables.
We will see this in action in the upcoming example.

Electronics are the best way to demonstrate this particular problem of marketing myopia and we
have a very good example for you.

Example – Google Glass

We all know Google, the world’s most popular search engine. It has become ubiquitous, with billions
of people around the world using this search engine to find information online. Google is such a
large and famous corporation that it has become a verb in our lexicon! “Google this. Google that.”
You cannot say the same with other tech corporations on the planet; none of them are as successful
as Google.

For over two decades, Google was renowned for being a search engine and in 2014, they wanted
launch the Google Glass, a pair of high-tech eyeglasses that will serve as an optical head-mounted
display. If you play video games, you will know that a heads-up display is a screen displaying
various information of objects and people around you. Imagine having that in real life by wearing
Google Glass.

Google was riding the success of its search engine and email service, Gmail, and attempted to
continue that success with hardware instead of software. They were under the illusion that a product
will sell itself because of the brand name associated with it. Because Google rose to prominence by
creating a superior search engine in the past, they took the same approach with Google Glass,
believing that their product is superior to everything else on the market. They heavily invested in
research and development to create a pair of glasses that will serve as a computer right in front of
your eyes. Google believed that continued product innovationwould result in continued growth.

This could not be further from the truth. After launching in 2014, Google Glass was met with mostly
negative reviews from users and due to safety and privacy concerns. Moreover, not many people
wanted to wear a pair of high-tech eyeglasses that gave them information by looking at objects or
people. As revolutionary as the product was, it was not well received by consumers because they had
no interest in it.

This is a classic example describing that just because something is very advanced and cutting-edge, it
does not mean that it will sell well. Google Glass did not resonate with consumers because it failed
to give them any actual utility. It was a good idea on Google’s part but that is all it was – a good
idea. Google concentrated so much on selling this high-tech device that they overlooked the
usefulness of it.

When companies invest more money on scientific research than on market research, then chances are
they will fail to address the needs of the consumer. This was quite evident with the Google Glass.

STRATEGIES TO AVOID OR MINIMIZE MYOPIA

Now that you know about the major causes of companies falling into the trap of marketing myopia,
you need to take precautionary measures to avoid them, or at the very least minimize its adverse
effects. You do not want to take a shortsighted approach to marketing.

Marketing must always be a long-term plan that is not as superficial as selling. If you follow these
strategies, your company will surely survive in the competitive market.

Have a Clear Vision

It takes far more than good intentions and promotional tricks to have a successful business. Those
may be great selling tactics but they are not necessarily good marketing ones. In order to be a
marketing-centric firm, a company needs to have its top management be very good leaders.

These leaders must make decisions with a clear vision in mind for the organization. At times, a
company may have to sacrifice short-term gains in order to attain something great in the long run.
Long-term gains is the name of the game and when a firm takes measures to define its business, then
it can easily adapt to the requirements of the market.

In order to clearly predict the position of your company in the future, you have to do much more than
simply survive; you must find a way to thrive. When leaders of a team have the drive and will to
succeed and live and breathe success, then they can be called visionaries. Who are the visionaries of
the modern era? Think of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and even the late Steve Jobs.

Examples – Visionaries that make their Business Successful

ElonMusk is the CEO of Tesla Motors, an automobile and energy production company that
manufactures electric cars and battery products. He envisions a world where everyone will drive
electric cars and power their houses with electric batteries. He has a clear vision for his company and
the future of the world.

Mark Zuckerberg is he CEO of Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site. He wants
everyone on every corner of the globe to be interconnected by establishing connections as well as
sharing stories and memories.

The late Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple and he envisages a world where everybody will use
technology to enrich their lives. With products like the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, he was responsible
for making these products a household name all over the world.

While these examples of visionaries may be over-the-top in terms of their expectations and world-
changing mindset, sometimes that is what it takes to be a successful company in this age. However,
you can also be part of a small business and still make a difference in your local community. As long
as your vision is clear, then you will know what to expect down the road and you will be able to
achieve it.

Be Customer-oriented, not Product-oriented

We have emphasized this point several times throughout this article because we believe it is the most
significant criteria of being a successful company in the future. You must be a customer-oriented,
also known as market-oriented, company that creates products and services that the market wants to
consume.

Focus on the needs of the consumer and you will naturally cast a wider net to appeal to a larger
audience. Focus on the requirements of the product and you will quickly realize that your
expectations of a great product may not meet the ever-changing demands of the market.

Here an example to help you see how marketing the same product in two different ways (customer-
oriented vs. product-oriented) may result in varied results.

Example – Lotion

Nivea is a personal care brand that specializes in making skin and body care products, like creams
and lotions. They are one of the largest producers of personal hygiene products in the world. They
were able to get to their position by targeting the needs of their market rather than flaunting their
products around aimlessly.

For instance, when you see advertisements or commercials for Nivea body lotion, you will see that
they use words like “Great for oily skin”, “Made for dry skin”, or “This lotion makes your skin silky,
smooth, and hydrated.” This is a good example of a company taking the marked-oriented approach
by addressing the problems of people’s skin and giving them some solutions to counter it and make it
better.

Had Nivea taken a more product-oriented approach, then they may have used words like “Our lotion
is made with 100% natural ingredients”, or “This lotion uses coconut extracts.” While those are
impressive features of a lotion, they fail to address the issues of consumers – “How do I make my
skin feel smoother?”

Marketing is more important than Selling

The above example on lotion branding demonstrates the effectiveness of marketing your products
aimed at the needs of customers versus selling your products based on its qualities. Yes, we do not
deny that there are customers who buy products based primarily on its qualities and features.
However, a vast majority of consumers for the most part purchase goods based on whether the
products actually help them.

If a product or service does not provide any kind of utility or benefit to the end consumers, then odds
are they will not buy it and your business will suffer from a tremendous loss. How can your business
determine the needs of consumers prior to creating products or services? Well this is where market
research comes into play.

Conduct comprehensive Market Research

In order to truly understand the things that people want, you need to ask them directly. Conducting
surveys and sending customer feedback emails go a long way in acquiring a deeper insight into the
mind of consumers. In this digital age, it has become common to ask questions via social media
platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Many companies even have their own blogs and forums where they ask customers and users
questions like “What would you like to see us improve in our products and services?” When you are
engaging with your target audience, it shows that you actually care about the market’s needs and
wants much more than your own.

Take all of that feedback into consideration when creating your next product and use it as input to
deliver a much better output tailored to the market. The market is very fickle so you need to conduct
market research every year to see where the trend is going. There is a lot of investment involved in
researching the market, but will likely result in large profits because you know what people want.

Rather than spending large amounts of money on R&D to design a product you think is excellent,
consult with marketers to understand how you can create a product that people want.
Use the insights from the following presentation on understanding your customers.

Be aware of the Competition and use your Resources

One of the key lessons you should take away from all of the examples listed in this report is that in
order to be a successful company for a long amount of time, you must be aware of your competition.
Being complacent and resting on your laurels is a sure-fire way of being supplanted by another
company that took the effort to be daring and innovative.

There are instances of several companies being the market leader for some period of time but
because they were arrogant, they were replaced by another company. Some companies believe that
what they are offering is the best because consumers are buying it by the bulk and will continue to do
so for years and years. That is the biggest misconception that plagues many poor top management
boards of many companies.

If you want to be a big player in your industry, then you need to make great efforts in knowing what
your competitors are up to. Investigate your competitor’s successful marketing strategies and
determine whom their products it was aimed at and why it worked so well. You can actually learn a
lot from other companies who have been around the block a few times. Leverage their experience,
the good ones and the bad ones, and modify it or create one from scratch that incorporates some of
their marketing elements.

Granted, many organizations keep their corporate news and events under wraps, so you cannot rely
solely on your competitors for some information. Fortunately, there are entire websites, blogs, and
industry analyses devoted to tracking changes in the market. You should definitely exhaust all of
these options to extract as much information as you can on the trends of the market.

Consulting experts regularly will keep you up-to-date on the requirements and expectations of
consumers. Of course, all of this is forecasted data based on past data, so you may have to take it
with a grain of salt. Though it is not conclusive evidence, the projected data generally shows a trend
going in a particular direction. Sometimes you have to go with your gut instinct and make a move.

If you wait too long, then there is always the possibility that you will miss your window of
opportunity. Before somebody else take it, you need to make your mark on your consumers.

Diversify your Business to Safeguard your Future

I am sure many have given you some life advice such as, “Do not bite off more than you can chew”
or “Jack of all trades is the master of none.” Perhaps you took these to heart and played by these
rules in your personal life. While they may work in your personal life, they have no place in the real
world of competitive businesses and marketing.

If you look at several mega corporations, you will see that they are like conglomerates with various
departments for producing a variety of goods. These businesses have become empires because they
diversified their options.

Diversification is a great business idea that you should definitely consider if you want to avoid
marketing myopia. When you evolve from your cocoon, you can spread your wings and realize that
your business has so much more offer. Do not be so one-dimensional and linear; try to be three-
dimensional by offering various products and services to consumers.

Here is an example of a company that decided to diversify their product range to take their company
to the next level.

Example – Nike

In the mid-20th century, an American shoe manufacturer rose in prominence when they made track
running shoes for athletes in the 1960 Summer Olympics. Their target audience were sports
professionals and athletes who needed shoes for their sports. They started with running shoes but
soon created cleats and basketball shoes for football and basketball, respectively. They eventually
started to face stiff competition from Adidas, a major European shoe manufacturer. Nike could have
either continued to design only shoes or diversify their business. They chose the latter and they have
reaped the benefits since then.

Nike started to manufacture sports apparel (like jerseys, shorts, and t-shirts), as well as sports
equipment to appeal to a broader audience with a much wider range of products and accessories.
Adidas followed suit but it was a tad bit late as they have always played second fiddle to Nike. Nike
has been the market leader in sports apparel and gear for several years now, holding a sizeable
market lead over its competitors.

This example shows that when you diversify your products and understand what industry you are in,
then you will not be shortsighted by your competitors and fall victim. Nike realized that they were
much more than a shoe manufacturer; Nike realized they were a sports gear manufacturer.
Diversification leads to market expansion, thereby preventing marketing myopia. Nike learned to
evolve and they are still evolving to this day. The adapted to meet customers’ needs.

Disruptive Innovation
A form of innovation that has proven to work wonders in the world of marketing is disruptive
innovation. Many established corporations sell their products and services at a high price to their
consumer base who have been loyal to them for quite some time. However, there are many who
cannot afford to pay such a large sum of money for something they need. They look for cheaper
alternatives that provide them the same utility at a much lower cost. This is where a startup company
can step in and establish their presence that will last a very long time.

Many startups or small businesses offer products or services so innovative and groundbreaking that
they create a new market by disrupting the current existing marketing. They evaluate what the
technological trend is and observe what customers want and come up with a product that is unlike
anything else their competitors are offering. It is a huge gamble because you have almost no
reference point but being a trendsetter and the “first of a kind” in the industry can work wonders for
you.

Your vision can lie solely in how your consumers will benefit immensely from using your product.
We have stated before that it is better to be customer-oriented than product-oriented to avoid
marketing myopia. However, disruptive innovation is the fusion of the two and creates dynamic
products that actually address the problems of consumers.

Let’s look at an example of how disruptive innovation can work in your favor.

Example – Digital Music Downloads

Up until the middle of the last decade, many music aficionados would buy music CDs or tapes when
they wanted to listen to their favorite music. They would then rip the music from the disks, store it
on their computer, and listen to them. This presented a major problem. They still needed to buy
physical media to listen to music. With the world becoming digital, there had to be a way to buy
music digitally. This is where Apple stepped in with an ingenious idea of a digital music store called
the iTunes Store, where people can purchase music at the price of $1 per song.

This totally disrupted the market because record labels and music studios at the time were only used
to releasing physical media when it came to music. The iTunes Store came in and gave people an
alternative they were looking for at a very low price in comparison to the CDs. Not too long after
that, Spotify joined in on the action with its music store app.

Spotify has the added benefit that you could listen to music for free! This disrupted the competition
even further because until Spotify, there were only paid options to download music legally. Now, an
app was letting people listen to music free of charge! Spotify made physical media irrelevant when it
came to music. For the past few years, it has reigned supreme as the number 1 choice from which
music lovers listen to songs.

This is a good example of how a disruptive innovative product or service can totally change the
landscape of an industry. As you may notice, there are fewer music CDs at stores these days because
most people are buying their music online or listening to it free of cost.

Spotify and iTunes had a common vision – To see a world where digital media is commonplace.
They made that dream come true.

CONCLUSION

For a company to experience continuous growth in today’s ever-changing landscape of business, it

must concentrate on satisfying customers’ needs rather than selling products. Organizations must
attempt to continually adapt to best meet customer needs in order to compete in a new industry. By
being customer-oriented, an organization will naturally experience an increase in sales volume and
revenue. Being shortsighted is detrimental in marketing. You must always think long-term and play
for the end game to be successful.

We have listed quite a few examples from Apple in this article. There is a good reason for this. If you
look at all of their products, you will see that they are not necessarily the best products on the
market. Nevertheless, they sell very well. Why is that? It is because they are marketed very well.
Apple’s marketing team is one of the best in the business, especially in the electronics and high-tech
industry. You can learn a lot from their marketing campaigns and strategies.

We would like to leave you with an important quote from Theodore Levitt’s Marketing Myopia that
succinctly states what your business should do to avoid myopia –

“Organizations must learn to think of themselves not as producing goods or services but as buying
customers, as doing the things that will make people want to do business with it.”

If you meet human needs, then you will always evolve and improve with a long-term goal of
satisfying customers and not just selling things.