According to scholars, the concept of diffusion was first studied by the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde in late 19th century and by German and Austrian anthropologists such as Friedrich Ratzel and Leo Frobenius. Its basic patterns, causes, effects or internal-influence form was formulated by H. Earl Pemberton, who provided examples of institutional diffusion.
In 1962 Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology published his work: “Diffusion of Innovations”. In this seminal piece, Rogers synthesized research from over 500 diffusion studies and produced a theory applied to the adoption of innovations among individuals and organizations.
Roger’s work asserts that 4 main elements influence the spread of a new idea: the innovation, communication channels, time, and a social system. These elements work in conjunction with one another: diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.
Central to Rogers’ theory is process. Individuals experience 5 stages of accepting a new innovation: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. If the innovation is adopted, it spreads via various communication channels. During communication, the idea is rarely evaluated from a scientific standpoint; rather, subjective perceptions of the innovation influence diffusion. The process occurs over time and, in the early stages, the success of the innovation is closely tied to “word of mouth”. Social media and the web have caused many to incorrectly assume that blogs and comments are word of mouth. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The term is correctly used when it refers to communication(s) from a TRUSTED and RESPECTED person (or persons) whom the individual knows well. Typically this is one-to-one via message, email, phone, or in person.
Adopter Categories
Rogers defines an adopter category as a classification of individuals within a social system on the basis of innovativeness. In Diffusion of Innovations, Rogers posits a five categories of adopters in order to standardize the usage of adopter categories in diffusion research. The adoption of an innovation follows the curve shown below.
Innovators
Innovators are the first individuals to adopt an innovation.
In this work Rogers postulated that Innovators are willing to take risks, youngest in age, have the highest social class, have great financial liquidity, are very social and have closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators. Risk tolerance has them adopting technologies which may ultimately fail. Financial resources help absorb these failures.
In high technology markets today, age and social class are far less important than it was in the 60s – 80s. The dominant factors are risk acceptance and financial means (depending on the price of the given innovation).
Early Adopters
This is the second fastest category of individuals who adopt an innovation. These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories. Rogers again felt that Early Adopters were typically younger in age, had a higher social status, had more financial liquidity, advanced education, and were more socially forward than late adopters.
(The same modifications to the characteristics of the Innovators made above operate here). They are still more discrete in adoption choices than innovators.
Early Majority
These individuals adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. The Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, as well as, contact with early adopters, and seldom are opinion leaders.
Late Majority
These individuals will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. They look at an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. The Late Majority have below average social status, very little financial liquidity and much lower opinion leadership within their respective communities.
Laggards
Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to risk/change and tend to be advanced in age, even today. Laggards tend to be focused on “traditions”, likely to have the lowest social status, lowest financial liquidity and be in contact with only family and close friends.
Deja Vu … All Over Again
Those of you trained in statistics will note the remarkable resemblance to a normal distribution curve with the Early and Late Majority one standard deviation each from the mean, representing 34% each of the population; the Early Adopters two Standard Deviations from the Mean to the left comprising 13.5%, the Innovators three standard deviations to the left at 2.5% and Laggards two and three standard deviations to the right, totaling 16%.
High Technology Products versus Typical Products
One of the critical differences in high technology products and categories compared to others is that they change very often in many different ways: color, shape, features, specifications, partners, product elements and so on. Indeed, if they don’t, those products and categories fail, often rapidly. The risk of purchase is much higher than lower cost or slowly changing products.
This is where two important concepts come into play: Leavitt’s “Total Product” and The Regis McKenna partners development of the “Whole Product”. Thoese are discussed in two separate posts which are linked to their respective names above and are critical to high technology marketing.
