The Diffusion of Innovations

Everyone in a target market falls into one of five groups based on their willingness to try the innovation. A person can be an innovator or early adopter in one product category and a laggard in another. However, marketers want to identify where individuals fall on the innovation curve for a particular product or product class. Interestingly, the process by which products become diffused in a market remains remarkably constant.

This activity is important because marketing managers need to be aware of the process of diffusion of innovations and the behaviors of their target markets. For long-term success, it is crucial for a product to reach the early majority adopters because they take the product into the mainstream.

The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate an understanding of how to identify where individual members of a target market fall on the innovation curve for a product or product class.

Research into the adoption of the Internet in the United States found it very similar to the adoption of color television in the United States in the 1960s. The process begins with a very small group who adopt the product perhaps through targeted marketing (they are given the product to try, for example) or high involvement with the product. From there, larger numbers in the different groups move through the adoption process. Two-thirds of all adopters for a given product fall in the early and late majority. The final group, laggards, may not move into the adoption process until late in the product's life cycle.