adoption of innovations

It has been suggested that those consumers who eventually accept an innovation can fall into the five groups shown in the below diagram. Understanding each of these groups should help a company in devising effective marketing strategies.

• Innovators - the first to buy and use new products, i. e. they put the innovation on show to create the image of being venturesome. They are likely to communicate with and persuade others to try the product. This group is defined as the first 2½% to adopt the new product.

• Early adopters - tend to be opinion leaders and to adopt new ideas early but carefully. This group is defined as the next 13½% of the adopting consumers.

• Early majority - people regarded as being deliberate in their decisions, who are rarely leaders. These form the next 34% of the adopting consumers.

• Late majority - sceptics who only adopt an innovation after most other people have tried it. These form the next 34% of the adopting consumers.

• Laggards - the most tradition-bound, who are suspicious of changes and innovations. They tend only to adopt the innovation when it has become widely accepted (i. e. no longer an innovation). The innovators are clearly critical to the process of adoption. Without their support an innovation is unlikely to be successful. See also product life cycle

Adoption of innovations