Of the more than 27 billion books on marketing now in print, none has had a greater impact than has this one. It is truly a masterpiece. By way of background, in 1960 (in its July-August issue), The Harvard Business Review published "Marketing Myopia" in which Leavitt ties marketing "more closely to the inner orbit of business policy." Specifically, "Management must think of itself not as producing products but as providing custom-creating value satisfactions." Companies should be marketing-led rather than production-led. That will happen only if and when there is a total commitment by senior management (and especially by the CEO) to satisfying current customers so that they remain loyal, and, to attracting new customers. Only marketing creates or increases demand. Without demand, there are no customers.
In the same article, Leavitt makes an important distinction: "Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs." Given this background, you can now place The Marketing Imagination in a proper context. "Marketing Myopia" is reprinted within the revised edition, first published in 1986.The chapter titles correctly suggest the scope of the subjects Leavitt discusses:
1. Marketing and the Corporate Purpose
2. The Globalization of Markets
3. The Industrialization of Service
4. Differentiation -- of Anything
5. Marketing Intangible Products and Product Intangibles
6. Relationship Management
7. The Marketing Imagination
8. Marketing Myopia
9. Exploit the Product Life Cycle
10. Innovative Imitation
11. Marketing and Its Discontents
I now ask you to re-read this list of chapter titles, keeping in mind that Leavitt's comments on each subject were formulated 15-20 years ago. That is, pre-WWW. That is, prior to the widespread understanding and appreciation of positioning, paradigms and paradigm shifts, "customized mass production", Marketing Value Added (MVA) to create Economic Value Added (EVA), brand equity, product and service differentiation, etc.
In essence, marketing means "getting and keeping customers in some acceptable proportion relative to competitors." That was true in 1986 when Leavitt wrote those words and remains true now when we read them. However, even if Leavitt and all the other major thought leaders in marketing were to collaborate, their collective genius could not create demand for shoddy goods, nor for mediocre services. The corollary is also true: neither product superiority nor operational excellence has compelling value to customers unless and until "the marketing imagination" succeeds in convincing them of it.
If you need to clarify your own thinking on key issues which include but are not limited to marketing, Arthur Leavitt can be of substantial assistance. Also, you will thoroughly enjoy the pleasure of his company.
