Marketing Myopia

            Theodore Levitt’s 1960 article “Marketing Myopia” is a business classic that earned its author the nickname “the father of modern marketing”.

It is also a beautiful demonstration of the problem solving skills that are crucial in so many areas of life – in business and beyond.

            The problem facing Levitt was the same problem that has confronted business after business for hundreds of years: how best to deal with slowing growth and eventual decline.

Levitt studied many business empires – the railroads, for instance – that at a certain point simply shrivelled up and shrank to almost nothing.

How, he asked, could businesses avoid such failures?

His approach and his solution comprise a concise demonstration of high-level problem solving at its best.

Good problem solvers first identify what the problem is, then isolate the best methodology for solving it.

And, as Levitt showed, a dose of creative thinking also helps.

Levitt’s insight was that falling sales are all about marketing, and marketing is about knowing your real business.

            The railroads misunderstood their real market: they weren’t selling rail, they were selling transport.

If they had understood that, they could have successfully taken advantage of new growth areas – truck haulage, for instance – rather than futilely scrabbling to sell rail to a saturated market.