Marketing is generally considered to have four components: the product, price, promotional activities and distribution. In his book, The Marketing Imagination, Theodore Levitt argues that the most critical success factor for any of these components is imagination. By bringing the issue of marketing imagination to the forefront, Levitt presents the reader with marketing considerations which stretch well beyond market share and market reach. This research examines Levitt's text in terms of its main arguments, its relevance to business professionals and lessons which can be learned from it.
Levitt asserts that the marketing imagination is nothing short of the most fundamental success factor in marketing. Levitt holds that the marketing imagination differs from other types of imagination in that it focuses on understanding customers, their problems and how to gain their attention. Levitt holds that people do not purchase things or features, but rather solutions and benefits. This is what sets the marketing imagination apart from other types of imagination (Levitt, 1986, p. 18).
From this beginning, Levitt moves on to the idea of differentiation, which, according to Levitt, is the process of recognizing that there have to be reasons for customers to choose one supplier over another. The process of differentiating oneself from the competition and one's products from others on the market is the process of giving customers the reason to purchase from one organization rather than another. Key to recognizing this is that customers, again, are seeking solutions to their problems. Thus, a craftsman is not interested in quarter inch bits, but rather in quarter inch holes.
Levitt also holds that the fundamental purpose of a company is not to make a profit, but rather to create and keep customers (Levitt, 1986, p. 5). Without customers, there is no business and no profit; however, according to Levitt, many companies focus on profi...