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 Have you ever thought-

 Why do companies and products fail?

 Why the products and brands which were once in

huge demand; slowly and slowly losing their
customer base, one day get totally rejected by
their consumers?
AMITABH MISHRA (Ph.D.) 5
AMITABH MISHRA (Ph.D.) 6
AMITABH MISHRA (Ph.D.) 7
 There may be a huge number of possible reasons of the
product failure, such as-
 Inappropriate marketing mix,
 Failure to adopt innovation,
 Fiercely increasing competition,
 Company’s own resource constraints and disabilities, etc.

 However,
In the core of most of the possible reasons
of product failure there exists the main cause of
product
failure popularly called “Marketing
Myopia”. 8
 The term “Myopia” came from
originally
Ophthalmology, which is the branch
of medicine that deals with the diseases of
the eyeball and orbit.

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 Myopia, is also known as Near-sightedness or Short-
sightedness. It is a condition of eyes where the light
focuses in front of retina, instead of on the retina.
 Occurrence of thiscause, distant objects to
be blurry while close objects normal.
extreme cases,appear
myopia may lead to risk of Inretinal
detachment, cataracts, and glaucoma.

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 Blur image

AMITABH MISHRA (Ph.D.) 11

 The term “Marketing Myopia” was first coined by

Professor Theodore C. Levitt (1925-2006).

 Professor Levitt was faculty of Marketing
in ‘Harvard Business School’ of ‘Harvard
University’.
 Marketing Myopia is “Short sighted and inward looking
approach to marketing that focuses on the needs of the
firm instead of defining the firm and its products in
terms of the customer’s need and wants”.

 A prolonged ignorance of consumers needs; and a

failure to adopt a consumer centric approach in
company’s policy formulation, finally result in failure
and rejection of products and may be of the company.
 This is a universal truth that-

‘All products become obsolete someday and get

replaced by new and better products’.

 The basic need of the consumer rarely change, however

the means through which that needs are satisfied (i.e.
the products or the wants) certainly change over a
period of time”.
 Professor Levitt, said that companies get trapped in Myopic
Situation and become prone to failure because they ignore to
ask the vital question-

“What business are we in?”

 Product orientation rather than Customer
orientation/ Excessive focus on Research and
Development.
 Production orientation rather than
Customer orientation.
 Narrow minded approach to marketing where
only short ranged goals are considered.
 Switch a Production Oriented Philosophy
from of a Consumer Oriented
marketing to Philosophy of
marketing. a Oriented Philosophy of
 Switch from Product a Oriented Philosophy of
marketing to Consumer
 marketing.
Define the business not around specific products.
But, around the specific consumer needs the product
fulfill.
 To avoid failure and rejection-
 The companies and the brands should not
get
obsessed with the products.
 They need to understand the fact that ‘the company
is not in a business of producing products and

selling them; company is in a business of

satisfying the needs of consumers’.

 The consumers don’t purchase a product; they
purchase ‘satisfier of their specific need’. The
products are just a mean to satisfy particular needs of
the consumers.
 The companies pay much focus on
that
the products; faces a severe threat of
vanished
gettingwhen the existing product is replaced
by some other product.

 However, a company that understands its

business correctly and has a correct definition of
it; has better chance to survive even when its
present product become outdated.
 Or

Symptoms

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o “That could never happen to us”
o “We are our own competitors”
o “Customers love our or service
product
regardless of what happens”
o “We are unbeatable”
o“The consumer is my wife and all she wants is a
limitless credit card”

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THANK YOU