If you are a digital marketing professional, you might have heard the expression “marketing myopia”, at some point. 

But do you know, exactly, what this means, and what its potential implications are for your business?

Our guide right here is a must-read for anyone wanting to dig deeper into the world of marketing myopia, its causes, its consequences, and its prevention. 

Let’s jump in!

Top 3 Examples of Marketing Myopia

These three companies suffered from marketing myopia — and paid hard for it. Let’s take a look at what happened, exactly, and learn from their mistakes.

#1. Blockbuster

Once upon a time, weekend entertainment was served by Blockbuster. Do you remember? It was pretty exciting.

On Fridays and Saturdays, you’d drive to your nearest Blockbuster store and spend varying amounts of time browsing through a seemingly never-ending stream of neatly organized VHS. 

Then, you’d go back home (often with a few extra snacks picked up at the checkout) and wind down with a good movie.

Now, the idea of physically going to a store to select a movie to watch — and pay for it each time — seems ludicrous to say the least. But before we all moved to at-home, on-demand, digital streaming services like Netflix, something was already happening.

With the advent of the internet, and the hyper-fast pace of digital life, our weekly trips to Blockbuster withered. 

We discovered DVDs, and then we discovered a company that delivered DVDs straight to our front doors. That company was, of course, Netflix.

And although Marc Randolph, its original CEO, had tried to sell the company to Blockbuster for $50 million, the offer was turned down with a laugh by Blockbuster’s CEO John Antioco. 

In the meantime, the digital era was growing, our visits to the local Blockbuster were plummeting, and the convenience of having movies by our front door was irresistible.

Netflix kept doing well because it was offering people exactly what they wanted. Blockbuster, on the other hand, kept ignoring this fact all along, focusing on its self-perceived superiority in the video rental market.

We all know how the story ends. Netflix eventually overtook Blockbuster, with the latter falling from grace and closing its doors for good in 2014.

#2. Nokia

Things didn’t end so catastrophically for Nokia, although the Finnish company suffered from a bad case of marketing myopia, too. And not only that, but it made myopic mistakes twice.

First of all, it didn’t take the iPhone seriously enough. Why? Simply because iPhones didn’t pass Nokia’s “fall test”, getting consistently smashed when dropped on concrete from a height.

The second time, it was all about operating systems. In 2008, Google made an entrance into the mobile phone market and launched its own operating system: Android.

Most of Nokia’s competitors were quick to jump on the Android bandwagon, with Nokia stubbornly remaining faithful to its complicated — and rapidly declining — operating system until well into 2011.

Maybe some execs really believed their legacy was unbreakable, or maybe the constant leadership shakeups made it impossible to see straight. Either way, that tunnel vision cost them dearly. There was a brief, awkward moment when Nokia tried to brand itself on hardware durability (as if dropping your phone was the only use-case that mattered) while the rest of the world was busy downloading apps and zipping messages across platforms Nokia couldn’t dream of matching at the time.

What’s sort of fun, or tragic depending on your outlook, is that Nokia actually had R&D teams tinkering with touchscreen designs and prototype smartphones years before the iPhone debuted. But those experiments got shelved, dismissed as techy fads by folks in charge. It’s not like they didn’t see the storm coming; they just thought they’d weather it, same as before. Hindsight’s a sharp critic.

In that year, Nokia decided to move away from its operating system, but it didn’t adopt Android: it, irresponsibly, chose to team up with Windows Phone, which became Nokia’s new operating system.

As you probably know, Windows Phone is now discontinued because it never really took off. 

Nokia paid hard for its inability to see past its own products and solutions, and its choice to embrace Android in 2014 was not enough to seal the company’s success.

#3. Yahoo

Raise your hand if you use Yahoo as your go-to search engine. Right, we can’t see many hands up! 

This is because Yahoo has long been surpassed by Google, which has now established itself as the main search engine worldwide.

But things could have gone differently. In 2002, Yahoo had the chance to acquire Google, for “just” $1 billion. 

Yahoo’s leaders politely declined. By the time they had changed their mind, Google was now priced at $3 billion.

Wrap Up

Marketing myopia can have disastrous consequences for your business.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ve delved deep into the causes of marketing myopia, provided valuable insights on how to avoid it, and highlighted the companies you should steer clear of imitating.

And remember, your content plays a crucial role in demonstrating your genuine care for your audience’s needs and interests.

That’s where WriterAccess comes in. With our talented network of professionals, we can create captivating content that truly resonates with your audience, showcasing your understanding of them.

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