Harvard business school professor emeritus theodore ted levitt, a monumental and iconoclastic figure in the field of marketing and former editor of harvard business review, who influenced generations of both scholars and practitioners with his groundbreaking, always provocative, and often controversial books and articles, died june 28 at his home in belmont, mass. Levitt joined the harvard business school hbs faculty in 1959 and quickly gained an international reputation as a scholar, writer, and teacher. His article marketing myopia, which was first published in harvard business review hbr in 1960 and which argued that companies and entire industries declined because management defined their businesses too narrowly, immediately became a huge success, with requests for 35,0 reprints from 1,0 different companies soon after its publication. More than 40 years later, more than 850,0 reprints had been sold, making the article one of the best selling hbr articles of all time. The key question that all managers must be able to answer, he advised, is what business are you in? the railroads, for example, let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business instead of the transportation business, he wrote. Nearly a quarter century later, levitt created a still raging controversy in the worldwide business community with his 1983 hbr article the globalization of markets.

Besides popularizing the word globalization, he asserted that new technologies had proletarianized communication, transportation, and travel, creating a new commercial reality the emergence of global markets for standardized consumer products at lower prices, thanks to economies of scale a sea change that was especially evident in companies such as coca cola, kellogg's, and mcdonald's. He insisted that the future belonged not to the multinational corporation, but to the global corporation that did not cater to local differences in taste. The ongoing impact of and debate about levitt's ideas were evident at the globalization of markets colloquium, a two day event held in appreciation of his scholarship at harvard business school in may 2003. Unable to attend because of poor health, levitt engaged in a videotaped discussion with longtime friend and marketing colleague stephen greyser, the school's richard p. That article did succeed in stimulating a great deal of comment, said levitt, adding that he was not at all surprised that it still gets attention today.

I admit it's written in a provocative way, he said, and that's one reason it gets assigned all the time. Commenting on the status of globalization in 2003, levitt said that he viewed overseas reaction against some american products as validating the notion of globalized markets. To some people, it looks like a foreign intrusion on domestic industry and a violation of culture, habits, and ways of doing business, he said. Asked by greyser whether international companies should therefore rethink the way they do business, levitt replied, a global company should always go about its business in a way that's responsive to the major differences from one country to another, in terms of, for example, how retailing or distribution or payment systems work. But the core product or service should remain unchanged, he added, since that is what is globalized. In the essay that gives the book its title, levitt asserts that the marketing imagination is the starting point of success in marketing. It is distinguished from other forms of imagination by the unique insights it brings to understanding customers, their problems, and the means to capture their attention and their custom.

Levitt was also the author or coauthor of seven other books, marketing for business growth 1974 , the third sector: new tactics for a responsive society 1973 , marketing: a contemporary analysis 1972 , the marketing mode 1969 , marketing 1964 , industrial purchasing behavior: a study of communication effects 1964 , and innovation in marketing 1962. The 25 articles he wrote for harvard business review four of which won mckinsey awards, presented annually to the best and second best articles of the year made him and the late peter drucker the most published authors in the history of the magazine. In 1983, levitt told an interviewer that in the last 20 years, i've never published anything without at least five serious rewrites. It's not to change the substance so much it's to change the pace, the sound, the sense of making progress even the physical appearance of it.

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Why should you make customers go through the torture chamber? i want them to say, 'aha!' levitt brought his legendary scholarship, vision, intensity, and dedication to good writing to his appointment by former hbs dean john mcarthur as editor of harvard business review, a position he held from 1985 to 1989. He is credited with transforming the magazine from an academic periodical into a more accessible publication that focused on important ideas and practices that influenced a readership composed of top business leaders. Among his innovations were shorter articles covering a broader range of topics, a more reader friendly design, and the introduction of new yorker style cartoons to provide an amusing perspective on the world of business.

If people don't read what you write, he often said, then what you write is a museum piece. Under levitt's leadership, hbr solidified its position as the preeminent publication of its kind in the world. He was arguably the best editor in hbr's history, said current editor thomas stewart.

He helped bring the magazine to a new standard of readability while ensuring that its quality was never higher. While levitt's many magazine articles and numerous books gained him a worldwide following outside of harvard, within hbs he earned a reputation as a popular and demanding teacher and effective administrator, serving as head of the school's marketing unit from 1977 to 1983. He favored a theatrical style in class, striding up and down the aisles and tossing chalk toward both blackboards and students. By the time he retired from the active faculty in 1990, levitt was considered one of the school's living legends, a seminal scholar who had radically altered marketing both as a practice within corporations and industries and as a field of academic inquiry. Ted levitt taught the first class i took as a student at harvard business school, said hbs dean jay light.

He had an enormous influence and presence on this campus and was an immense figure in the field of marketing. He represented the extraordinary qualities we seek in an hbs faculty member world class leadership and research, an ability to generate ideas with impact and then to apply them to practical issues and problems, and a remarkable talent for teaching them in an exciting way in the classroom. Ted's work set the highest standards for all of us who worked with him and learned from him. Added john quelch, lincoln filene professor of business administration and a senior associate dean at the school, ted levitt was the most influential and imaginative professor in marketing history. He was an intellectual provocateur but one whose insights were grounded in a profound understanding of practice. Ross school of business at the university of michigan, recalled levitt's important role as a mentor of younger faculty members: i never sat in his classroom, but the best thing that has ever happened to me professionally was to be a 'student' of ted levitt's as a professor in his marketing group. His direct influence on the field of marketing and on hbs is dramatic and well understood.

Equally important, however, was the training he provided to so many disciples who wanted to follow his lead in terms of intellectual rigor, commanding relevance, and artful exposition. All of us who have studied with him as students or colleagues are in great debt to him. Harvard business school's stephen greyser explained the pattern of levitt's influence: his primary goal was to influence practice via powerful ideas, typically articles. His success in affecting 'important people in important companies' his own phrase in turn drove academics to bring levitt's ideas to their classrooms. Marketing students and executive program participants even today have a 'high levitt quotient' in their readings.

Levitt was born on march 1, 1925, in vollmerz, germany, a small town near frankfurt, and moved with his family to dayton, ohio, a decade later to escape the encroaching nazi threat. In dayton, the four levitt children and their parents lived in a rough, colorful neighborhood, he later told the dayton daily news. As kids, we were independent and streetwise, except our parents paid considerable attention to what we did in school. He and the late erma bombeck, who went on to become a nationally syndicated columnist, started a newspaper in their elementary school. A few years later, when he was working as a reporter for the dayton journal herald while still in high school, he helped bombeck get her start at the paper. Army before he finished high school, levitt served in europe during world war ii. At the end of the war, he returned to dayton and a job as a sports writer at the dayton journal herald.

He earned his high school diploma through a correspondence course and enrolled at antioch college, receiving his a.b. Two years later, he earned a doctorate in economics from ohio state university and began teaching at the university of north dakota. Titled the changing character of capitalism, it caught the attention of executives at the standard oil company and led to the next phase of his career as a chicago based consultant to the oil industry. Several years and an additional harvard business review article later, he was recruited to join the hbs faculty.