Professor Theodore Levitt is widely regarded as the Poet Laureate of the marketing
academy. His seminal, occasionally controversial, articles owe as much to their racy
writing style as their provocative content. Although the content of
Levitt’s publications have been debated at length, his style has attracted
much less academic attention. Academics, however, are writers. They publish or
perish. Placing compelling words on a page is a core scholarly competence. This
article examines the great guru’s published work from a literary
perspective. It specifies his signature stylistic device, shows how it pervades his
manifold publications and, in the belief that everyone can learn from Levitt,
reveals the inner workings of the ultimate writing machine.
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