MarketingLesson 2 of 3

Marketing myopia and competitive advantage

Part 1 of 1

Marketing Myopia

Marketing myopia (Levitt, 1960) is the strategic error of defining your business by the product you currently make rather than the underlying customer need you serve.

The danger: when a new technology or business model serves the same need better, a myopic firm does not recognise it as a threat — because the new competitor is in a "different industry." By the time the incumbent understands what is happening, it is too late to respond.

The fix: define your business around the *need*, not the *product*. - "We are in the railroad business" → myopic - "We are in the transportation business" → customer-focused, adaptable

This reframing changes who your competitors are, what substitutes threaten you, and what capabilities you need to build. It also changes what opportunities you can see — a transportation company would have explored trucking, aviation, and later logistics platforms; a railroad company would not.

Worked example

1Kodak defined itself as a film company.
2Digital photography served the same need (capturing memories) with a completely different technology.
3Kodak actually invented the digital camera in 1975 but shelved it to protect film sales.
4By the time smartphones made digital photography universal, Kodak had no competitive position left.
5Customer-need framing would have asked: 'We are in the memory-capture business — how does digital serve that better?'

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