Theodore Levitt, one the most influential thinkers in modern marketing, ex-editor of Harvard Business Review, and professor at Harvard Business School passed away on June 28th, 2007.
Marketing Myopia
Levitt's famous HBR article "Marketing Myopia" -- argued that companies sometimes fail because of the narrow view the company's management holds about the company's business line. Railroad companies in the United States, Levitt argued, failed to realize that they were in the transportation business not in railway business alone. Thus as other modes of transportations became popular railroads lost customers. Compare this from the current line of thinking of some airlines which offer pick up and drop facilities to and from the airport!
Marketing Myopia and Technology Companies
Marketing Myopia hurt Wang when its stand-alone Word Processing machines lost to word processing software that became common PCs.
In the current context it is interesting that FIFA markets the football world cup as an event for entertainment rather than a contest interesting only for football fans. This is a good example of overcoming Marketing Myopia.
Software and Technology companies have to watch out for Marketing Myopia because Technological shifts often change consumer preferences. Definining business in terms of the value that is offered to customers is a good way to not have a myopic view.
Apple's Marketing Myopia
My personal view is that Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) also suffers from Marketing Myopia at a certain level. It doesnt see itself as a premium designer of Digital Goods but as a maker of PCs Software and Music Players. (Apple's market share in PCs is currently less than 5% world-wide.) However, the real value and appeal of Apple Computer Inc. to consumers and perhaps to the industry is the Industrial designs it comes out with.
In my post New Strategy for Apple -- Design Center for Tech World I had said:
Design -- not hardware or software, in my view, is the Core Competence of Apple. Apple wows the world not because of its Macintosh sales numbers, nor because of the dominance of its Operating system or software. It wow's the world due the design of its products.
Year after year, Apple's products win Industrial Design awards. Jonathan Ive has risen to world-wide prominence after leading the design of crowd wow-ing iMacs and several other Apple products.
What if Steve Job's signed up HP, Microsoft, DELL, IBM, Creative, Samsung, Nokia and several other players for Apple to create (and charge a premium for) new design innovations for their software and hardware? That would allow Apple to focus on what it does best -- design.
