DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS

Application: Product Strategy, Communications Strategy

The Concept

Diffusion of innovation is the process by which societies learn of new concepts and adjust to them. It is a theory of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. It tracks the course of new ideas and concepts, like water purification or environmental concern, as they grow in influence through a society. It is used by public bodies to help with significant social initiatives like changes in health practice or agricultural techniques.

The phenomenon is, essentially, a communication process which involves word-of-mouth, publicity, and subtle forms of marketing. The social scientists who study this phenomenon recommend the use of opinion leaders, experts, and catalysts to help an idea spread. It is from this, not the product life cycle literature, that the attitudes of various groups of people at different phases of diffusion (which is used so extensively by marketers) are drawn (see Figure D.2). Some are:

• Innovators: the first to adopt an innovation. They are willing to take risks and interested in scientific or technological ideas (gadgets).
• Early Adopters: the fastest category to adopt an innovation and, generally, a larger group.
• Early Majority: taking up the idea after a degree of time, they tend to be slower in the adoption process.
• Late Majority: adopting the innovation after the average member of the society, these tend to be more sceptical.
• Laggards: the last to adopt an innovation and can take pride in their resistance to new ideas.

Figure D.2: A representation of the attitudes of people at different phases of the diffusion of innovation

Marketers should be aware of this because it is the social communication mechanism which opens the market for any specific product or service. Marketing communication should go with the grain of the attitudes of the dominant group of buyers at that stage in the innovation diffusion process. Marketers can use the knowledge of the phases in the adoption of ideas to help the spread of interest in their product or service amongst a market. If it is, say, at the phase where the “late majority” are taking the concept on board (at the time of writing, for example, internet banking) then the communications strategy and methods would be different to those used if it was a totally new idea which was attracting the attention of innovators (at the time of writing, for example, 3D TV).

History, Context, Criticism, and Development

Study of the phenomenon was explicitly initiated by social scientists like Beal, Bohlen, and Rogers after the Second World War. They trace its foundations and antecedents back to a range of people notable in their field (like August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Gabriel Tarde, James Baldwin, and even Charles Darwin). It has been tested, researched examined and used in many contexts (from first-world drug use to third-world water sanitation). A famous study, reported by Rogers, was, for instance, on the diffusion of the use of hybrid seed corn amongst Iowa farmers in 1943. The primary source on this concept, though, is Everett Rogers (Rogers, E.M., 2003) who gathered massive amounts of data on it. He estimates that, by 2007, there were 6,000 diffusion studies and 600 diffusion publications by academics who study communication. In 1960, for example, Deutschmann and Danielson published ground-breaking research which demonstrated the S-curve in the diffusion of news events through journalism and across society.

There have been attempts to reconcile the stream of research around this concept with that of the product life cycle in marketing (see Spears, N.E. and Germain, R., 1995). Their conclusion is that the two are inter-related where a product is an object, idea, or construct that is entirely new (Rogers, 2003) but they talk of a “higher order construct”, the extent to which the market embraces an innovative idea or concept (of which the product or service is a manifestation).

In recent years, a growing body of marketing thinkers, primarily connected with the launch of IT-related products in Silicon Valley (see Moore, G.A., 1991; Rosen, E., 2001; and Godin, S., 2004) have brought attention to the marketing communication techniques relevant in the early adoption phase of a new offer. They argue for the use of viral marketing, PR, and network marketing, particularly through digital methods. Some suggest that this should become the dominant method of marketing because of the rapid increase of new technology, the powerful viral networkers on the internet, and the disruption to established broadcast TV networks. The diffusion of innovation is now becoming an established part of marketing communication theory (see Rogers, E.M., Singhal, A., and Quinlan, M.M., 2009).

Voices and Further Reading

• Rogers, E.M., Diffusion of Innovations. Free Press, 2003.
• “Information about an innovation is often sought from peers, especially information about their subjective evaluations of the innovation. This information exchange about new ideas occurs through a conversation process involving interpersonal networks. The diffusion of innovation is essentially, then, a social process in which subjectively perceived information about a new idea is communicated from person to person. The meaning of an innovation is thus gradually worked out through a process of social construction …This information exchange about new ideas occurs through a conversation process involving interpersonal networks. The diffusion of innovation is essentially a social process in which subjectively perceived information about a new idea is communicated from person to person.” Rogers, ibid.
• “… our marketing ventures, despite normally promising starts, drift off course in puzzling ways, eventually causing unexpected and unnerving gaps in sales revenues, and sooner or later leading management to undertake some desperate remedy. … the point of greatest peril in the development of a high-tech market lies in making the transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominantly pragmatists in orientation.” Moore, G.A., 1991.
• Rogers, E.M., Singhal, A., and Quinlan, M.M., Diffusion of Innovation. 2009, which explores this process as part of communication theory.
• Trott, P., Innovation Management and New Product Development. Prentice Hall, 2008.
• “Innovation diffusion theories try to explain how an innovation is diffused in a social system over time; the adoption of an innovation is therefore a part of the wider diffusion process. … There is a considerable amount of confusion with regard to adoption and diffusion. This is largely due to differences in definition. Most researchers in the field, however, view adoption of innovations as a process through which individuals pass from awareness to the final decision to adopt or not adopt; whereas diffusion concerns the communication over time within a wider social system.” Trott, ibid.

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