“Marketing Myopia” by Theodore Levitt

Essay Instructions:

Read Marketing Myopia, an article written in 1960 by Theodore Levitt and published in the Harvard Business Review. Read, reread, and consider the ideas advanced by the author. Do you agree? Disagree? Are his ideas relevant today? What are the strengths and weaknesses of his arguments? The goal of this assignment is for you to critically assess the ideas advanced by the author using your own knowledge and experience to justify your position.

Clarity of argument while having a focused, concise presentation is key to your success in this assignment. The main themes put forward by the author should be addressed, providing a critical analysis of the hypothesis and the data used to support it.

The critique should include an introductory paragraph briefly summarizing the article and a concluding paragraph briefly summarizing the student’s position on the value/accuracy/relevance of the article. This assignment should draw on materials from the assigned readings and discussion materials, in addition to external materials, your past learnings, and your experiences.

These criteria must be met when submitting your article critique:

The report must be 1-2 double-spaced typewritten pages. It should be free of spelling errors, be grammatically correct, written in full-sentences, and contain full words (no shorthand, emoticons, etc.).

All materials must be referenced using APA style. Efforts to reference academic sources located through the library is encouraged.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

“Marketing Myopia” by Theodore Levitt Name Institutional Affiliation “Marketing Myopia” by Theodore Levitt Introduction Many will dismiss the idea that marketing is illusive, manipulating, and invasive. The core of the argument that marketing is manipulative is that too much attention is paid on material consumption. Critics of marketing claim that the process benefits from other domains to sustain sectors largely devoted to consumption. This observation carries some weight when analyzing it from the perspective of multinational companies such as Nike and Coca-Cola, which command more loyalty among their many consumers compared to trade unions, political parties, and religious organizations. Marketing has been the success story of the United States as a country. The country has been successful in the art of marketing. While marketing by producers to the consumers is an old practice, modern marketing has been termed as “more than just selling (Quelch, 2009).” “Marketing myopia,” an article written by Theodore Levitt, explores and details the issues he found with the short-sightedness of big business and the failure to adopt a wider perspective of external factors in their strategies such as the needs of the consumer and the neglect to evaluate such needs (Grant, 1999). This paper critically assesses the ideas advanced by Levitt and argues to support his argument that marketing has become insensitive leading to the failure of large businesses. Levitt emphasized that organizations that work on the notion that their products have a unique value are only growth opportunities fail to notice that their dependence on the strategy could be their own downfall. In support to his thesis, he provides four points to argue why industries that assume to be riding on some sort of automatic growth escalator finally descend into stagnation. Myopically, such corporations have a belief that growth is often assured by a more affluent and expanding populace. They also have a strong conviction that there is no competing substitute for their major pr...

Updated on January 26, 2024

Get the Whole Paper!

Not exactly what you need?

Do you need a custom essay? Order right now:

Order