Theodore Levitt: Globalization of Marketing
Theodore Levitt’s 1960 Harvard Business Review article, Marketing Myopia, is a landmark of the discipline. But Levitt is best known for the word Globalization. Rumors that he coined it are wrong, but he certainly gave it prominence in the 1980s.
Watching this video is worth 2 Management Courses CPD Points*.
🔎 See below for details
Marketing for Managers
This video is part of course module number 8.3.6
Program 8: Managing Customers & Clients
Course 3: Marketing for Managers
Section 6: Masters of Marketing
Other videos in this section include:
🎬 Estée Lauder: The Mother of Modern Marketing https://youtu.be/fqMCHag_Cek
🎬 Philip Kotler: The Father of Modern Marketing https://youtu.be/H803ZGXy69Y
🎬 Jean-Claude Larréché and Marketing Momentum https://youtu.be/hdnhOOMhL8M
🎬 Seth Godin: Powerhouse of Marketing Ideas https://youtu.be/dkWYPBkB7UI
LESSON NOTES
Marketing Myopia https://hbr.org/2004/07/marketing-myopia
Theodore Levitt argued that corporations should not think of themselves as producers of goods or services, but as ‘buyers of customers’.
The Marketing Imagination https://geni.us/8xGPAQ
Levitt defines the corporate purpose as: ‘to create and keep a customer’
So, marketing must pervade a company’s strategy and balance its focus on production and operations.
Theodore Levitt’s Marketing Matrix
Levitt introduced a marketing matrix, that charts a company’s inward ‘company orientation’ against its outward ‘customer orientation’, with the ideal at the top right.
The Industrialization of Service https://hbr.org/1976/09/the-industrialization-of-service
We need to apply the same rigor of repeatability, monitoring, and quality control to customer services, as we do to operations.
Levitt also introduced the now-commonplace concept of ‘Relationship Marketing’ – the activity designed to keep customers and extend your relationship with them. This has, of course, spawned the whole discipline (and software market) of CRM: Customer Relationship Management – https://youtu.be/Lb5VZR9phgs
The Globalization of Markets https://hbr.org/1983/05/the-globalization-of-markets
Levitt argued that the two ‘vectors’ of technology and globalization would shape the world. Technological advances would drive marketplace changes towards global uniformity. To survive and outcompete rivals, corporations need to harness the efficiencies of standardization. These outweigh the desirability for customers of local customization in a competitive sense.
This position got Levitt into a debate that we describe in our video about the other towering figure in twentieth-century marketing, Philip Kotler https://youtu.be/H803ZGXy69Y
RECOMMENDED EXERCISE
1. To what extent does your organization act as if its main purpose is to create and keep customers? (2 MC CPD Points)
2. Where would you say your organization sits on Levitt’s marketing matrix? And why – what is your evidence? (3 MC CPD Points)
3. How much has your organization moved towards globalization or localization? Where on this spectrum would you argue it should move to, and why? (3 MC CPD Points)
DOWNLOADS
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RECOMMENDED READING
📖 Very quick overview
Marketing: A Very Short Introduction https://geni.us/ozSJF
📖 Good general overviews
Kotler on Marketing https://geni.us/JNeVHy
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind https://geni.us/kGj4KCA
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing https://geni.us/RVU1
Marketing For Dummies https://geni.us/sZXAw
📖 Small business marketing
The 1-Page Marketing Plan https://geni.us/Xb4wBk
📖 For a textbook, you can’t go wrong with Kotler’s name on it!
Marketing: An Introduction https://geni.us/q4gzVOw
Principles of Marketing https://geni.us/gsFeMT5
Marketing Management https://geni.us/i3FO
⭕️ Links to our book recommendations are affiliated through Amazon
Managers Need a Basic set of kit to do your job well. Here are my top recommendations: https://kit.co/MikeClayton/manager-s-work-kit (the links are affiliated)
MANAGEMENT COURSES CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD) POINTS
You can record your Management Courses CPD points on our free, downloadable CPD record log.
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Each video has two levels of MC CPD points. For this video:
– If you simply watched the video, record 2 MC CPD points
– If you also carried out all of the recommended exercises, score a total of 10 MC CPD points
00:00 – Theodore Levitt
00:45 – Marketing Myopia
01:18 – The Marketing Imagination
02:30 – Levitt’s Marketing Matrix
02:55 – The Industrialization of Service
03:21 – Theodore Levitt and CRM: Customer Relationship Management
03:52 – The Globalization of Markets
05:23 – Levitt vs Kotter: The debate with Philip Kotter
05:49 – Levitt’s Contribution
#Marketing #ManagementCourses #TheodoreLevitt
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