Theodore Levitt’s Globalization of Markets Is Still Powerful (if Wrong) Twenty Years Later [Archive.org URL]

When it appeared in the pages of the Harvard Business Review in May 1983, HBS professor Theodore Levitt’s article “The Globalization of Markets” ignited a debate that still goes on twenty years later.

Levitt argued that technology such as television was a powerful force homogenizing the world’s needs and desires, and that smart global companies could sell standardized products using standardized marketing approaches around the world. Think of the Big Mac and Ronald McDonald setting up shop in Guangzhou, China, for example. By contrast, Levitt argued, multinationals that customize products for local markets are becoming obsolete.

Much of what Levitt predicted did not come true-if anything, there has been a consumer uprising against homogeneity and the “Americanization” of the world. But the issues he raised were profound, and still carry important implications for companies selling products internationally.

To commemorate Levitt’s work in his 1983 article and in path-breaking works such as “Marketing Myopia,” HBS professor John Quelch organized a colloquium at HBS where some seventy faculty members and top executives convened to hear new research and discuss “The Globalization of Markets.”

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