Hiroyuki Kondo: Marketing Myopia

2021/11/11

Changes in the technological environment bring about significant changes in the way markets exist. For example, in the past, automobile manufacturers only needed to be aware of other manufacturers in the same industry as competitors. However, today, as the fusion of cars and the internet has become a reality, it has become necessary to view companies like Apple and Google as powerful competitors. In response to such changes in the market environment, Toyota Motor Corporation declared that it would change its model from a "car-making company" to a "mobility company" that provides all kinds of services related to movement. In addition, companies are re-examining their own positions, with JR East and Odakyu Electric Railway being strongly conscious of "MaaS (Mobility as a Service)," which means turning transportation into a service, as their future direction. Writing it this way makes it seem like a recent new trend, but for some reason, I feel a sense of déjà vu.

Theodore Levitt once sounded an alarm, calling it "Marketing Myopia" when companies perceive their own businesses and markets narrowly in a product-centric way, thereby missing potential competitive threats and market opportunities. For example, he argued that railroad companies declined because they narrowly defined their business as the "railroad business" rather than the "transportation business," and as a result, although the demand for passenger and freight transportation was increasing, that demand was taken away by automobiles and aircraft. Although Levitt proposed this concept more than 60 years ago, it feels as though "mobility company" and "MaaS" correspond directly to the examples Levitt cited.

One of the attractions of marketing as a research field is that new and interesting themes appear one after another as the social environment changes. Recently, I myself have been conducting research exploring the significance in marketing of the increasing use of online information by consumers and transactions that do not involve the transfer of ownership, as exemplified by subscriptions. However, as "Marketing Myopia" shows, there are parts of marketing that do not change so easily. While the continuous emergence of interesting research themes is a great attraction of marketing, for that very reason, I believe it is also important to maintain an attitude of constantly questioning what the essence is, rather than just being swept away by superficial matters.