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Are the Adopter Categories Still Valid It's been a long time since I sat any Marketing Papers definitely pre Web but while looking for inspiration I chanced upon a well thumbed book "The Fundamentals of Marketing by William J Stanton" and thought did the Adopter Categories hold true in the world in which we live today. It is possibly stretching the comparison somewhat; the text book writings were about the adoption of new products that existed in that time but what is the difference today with the social media, Facebook,Twitter, Linkedin and the like. They are products we use. From the textbook: Researchers have identified five categories of individuals based on the relative time when they adopted a given innovation. Innovators A venturesome group, constitute about 3% of the market and are the first to adopt an innovation. In relation to later adopters, the innovators are likely to be younger, have higher social status and be in a better financial position. Innovators also tend to have broader, more cosmopolitan social relationships. They are likely to rely more on impersonal sources of information, including those external to their own social system, than on sales people or other word of mouth sources Early adopters About 13 percent of the market, tend to be a more integrated part of a local social system. That is whereas innovators are cosmopolites, early adopters are localites. Thus the early adopter category includes more opinion leaders than any other adopter group. Early adopters are greatly respected in their social system. An "agent of change" is a person who is seeking to speed up the diffusion of a given innovation. Early majority The more deliberate group, the early majority, represents about 34 percent of the market. This group tends to accept an innovation just before the average adopter in a social system. This group is a bit above average in social and economic measures. Its members rely quite a bit on advertisements, sales people and contact with early adopters. Business firms in this category are average size operations Late majority Representing about another 34 percent of the market, the late majority is a sceptical group. Usually its members adopt an innovation in response to an economic necessity or social pressure from their peers. They rely on their peers, late or early majority as sources of information. Laggards This tradition bound group, 16 percent of the market includes those who are last to adopt an innovation. Their point of reference is what was done in the past. Laggards are suspicious of innovations and innovators. Where do we fit in Possibly at the beginning, the innovators, but are we young or old. Does the above still apply in today's world. Are business decisions still being made based on it. Maybe the rules of Marketing are in need of an update. We are living in a world of change, who is going forward and who is not. A case in point The conversation went something like this, did you see on TV the program about kids and mobile phones, can't live without them, in the shower, under the pillow, it's an addiction, they need help, we didn't do that, and so it went on and on and on. A discussion by people on a subject they are not a part of, but one they feel qualified to comment on. But what are they commenting on, a lifestyle which is different to their own, so it is suspect, worthy of a TV program to highlight the differences. But it is in the differences that lay the seeds of growth How many marketers, salespeople, marketing managers and CEOs miss the changes that are happening and continue to undertake their business activities (which involve people) as they have done in the past and so not see the differences that are occurring. What category do they fit into? Are the mobile phone user's innovators and business in general the laggards? But then maybe it is the way of the world, the old guard because of the business structure not capable of seeing another way Bruce Sterling made a comment at Webstock "Let's consider the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). The complexities are deep and they ramble on endlessly. The guys living "the Hundred Years War" had no idea they were in one. Four generations of "war" isn't a "war," it's a lifestyle." Yes, It was a lifestyle, to the population it was "normal" "usual" if anyone had suggested anything different, like no "war" how would the audience know, they had not experienced it Think about it, and the statement we are living through the greatest sociological events the world has even known becomes clearer every day. We have no idea how the world will change in the next 20 years, but it is sure fun being part of it. The adopter process structure as outlined above does it still hold true and if not there are a lot of people in business making decisions based on old world theories Contact Firstsearch |