Adopting Innovation

Topic: “Categories of Adopters”
 Name: Sana Nafees

 Student ID: BM-26632
 Subject: Consumer Behavior (MKT404)
 Teacher: Bilawal Ali
ADOPTION:
Willingness to try out a new innovation or new product.
ADOPTERS:
The members of a society who start using a new technology or innovation during
a specific period of time.
CATEGORIES OF ADOPTERS:
Adopter categories were first described by sociologist Everett Rogers in his

landmark book "Diffusion of Innovations" in 1962. According to Rogers, not
everyone has the same motivation for adopting a new idea. He identifies the
following five types of adopters:
• Innovators
• Early Adopters
• Early Majority
• Late Majority
• Laggards
PROCESS OF ADOPTION:
• Awareness: Getting information about the product or may only know the
name of product & its basic features.
• Interest: Adopters want to know what is it or how it works & what its
potentialities.
• Evaluation: Adopters want to know will this product satisfy his needs &
requirement.
• Trial: Experimental use a product when it’s possible.
• Adoption/Rejection: If favorable the adopter use the product if unfavorable

the adopters decides to reject it.
INNOVATORS:
Observers have noted that venturesomeness is almost an obsession with
innovators. They are very eager to try new ideas. This interest leads them out of a
local circle of peer networks and into more cosmopolite social relationships.
Communication patterns and friendships among a clique of innovators are
common, even though the geographical distance between the innovators may be
considerable. Being an innovator has several prerequisites. These include control
of substantial financial resources to absorb the possible loss owing to an
unprofitable innovation and the ability to understand and apply complex technical
knowledge. The innovator must be able to cope with the high degree of
uncertainty about an innovation at the time that the innovator adopts.
The salient value of the innovator is venturesomeness. He or she desires the

hazardous, the rash, the daring and the risky. The innovator must also be willing
to accept an occasional setback when one of the new ideas he or she adopts
proves unsuccessful, as inevitably happens. While an innovator may not be
respected by the other members of a social system, the innovator plays an
important role in the diffusion process: that of launching the new idea in the
social system by importing the innovation from outside of the system’s
boundaries. Thus, the innovator plays a gate keeping roles in the flow of new
ideas into a social system.They adopt something simply because it is new. They
love exploring for the sake of exploring and are willing to take risks, even if those
risks result in failure, although they make up a very small part of the total market,
innovators play a very important role. They are interested in anything new, and
are quick to adopt new and innovative products.
EARLY ADOPTERS:
Young and restless; early adopters are opinion leaders. They pay attention to
what the innovators have discovered and find a practical use for the innovation.
They then communicate to their followers the usefulness of the new product.
They play a very important role by influencing the attitude and changing the
behavior of the later adopters.
Early adopters are a more integrated part of the local social system then are
innovators. Whereas innovators are cosmopolites, early adopters are localities.
This adopter category, more than any other, has the greatest degree of opinion
leadership in most social systems. Potential adopters look to early adopter for
advice and information about the innovation. The early adopter is considered by
many as “the individual to check with” before using a new idea. This adopter
category is generally sought by change agents to be a local missionary for
speeding the diffusion process. Because early adopters aren’t too far ahead of the
average individual in innovativeness, they serve as a role model for many other
members of a social system. The early adopter is respected by his or her peers,
and is the embodiment of successful and discrete use of new ideas. And the early
adopter knows that to continue to earn this esteem of colleagues and to maintain
a central position in the communication structure of the system, he or she must
make judicious innovations decisions. So the role of the early adopter is to
decrease uncertainty about a new idea by adopting it, and then conveying a
subjective evaluation of the innovation to near-peers by means of interpersonal
networks.
EARLY MAJORITY:
The early majority adopt new ideas just before the average member of a social
system. The early majorities interact frequently with their peers, but seldom hold
leadership positions. The early majority’s unique position between the very early
and the relatively late to adopt makes them an important link in the diffusion
process. They provide interconnectedness in the system’s networks.
The early majority may deliberate for some time before completely adopting new
idea. Their innovation-decision period is relatively longer than that of the
innovator and the early adopter. “Be not the first by which the new is tried, /Nor
the last to lay the old aside”
Early majority are the critical mass that ensures adoption. The early majority looks
for productivity and practical benefits more than coolness or reputation.
Value shoppers the early majority carefully observe the early adopters, but wait
to adopt innovative products until they are sure they will get value from them.
The early majority will only adopt a new product if they are sure the new product
will provide usefulness to their lives - and not be a waste of their time and money.
LATE MAJORITY:
Skeptics; the late majority wait until an innovation has been accepted by a
majority of consumers and the price has dropped to adopt the new product. The
late majority typically adopt innovative products because they feel as if everyone
else is doing it.
The late majority is similar but also expects a lot of help and support before they
are willing to commit.
The late majority adopt new ideas just after the average member of a social
system. Adoption may be both an economic necessity and the answer to
increasing network pressures. Innovations are approached with a skeptical and
cautious air, and the late majority do not adopt until most others in their social
system have done so. The weight of system norms must definitely favor the
innovation before the late majority are convinced. They can be persuaded of the
utility of new ideas, but the pressure of peers is necessary to motivate adoption.
Their relatively scarce resources mean that almost all of the uncertainty about a
new idea must be removed before the late majority feel that it is safe to adopt.
LAGGARDS:
Laggards are the last in a social system to adopt an innovation. They possess
almost no opinion leadership. They are the most localite in their outlook of all
adopter categories; many are near isolates in social networks. The point of
reference for the laggard is the past. Decisions are often made in terms of what
has been done in previous generations and these individuals interact primarily
with others who also have relatively traditional values. When laggards finally
adopt an innovation, it may already have been superseded by another more
recent idea that is already being used by the innovators. Laggards tend to be
frankly suspicious of innovations and change agents. Their traditional orientation
slows the innovation-decision process to a crawl, with adoption lagging far behind
awareness-knowledge of a new idea. While most individuals in a social system are
looking to the road of change ahead, the laggard’s attention is fixed on the rear-
view mirror. This resistance to innovations on the part of laggards may be entirely
rational from the laggard’s viewpoint, as their resources are limited and so they
must be relatively certain that a new idea will not fail before they can afford to
adopt. The laggard’s precarious economic position forces these individuals to be
extremely cautious in adopting innovations.
Many observers have noted that “laggard” is a bad name, and it is undoubtedly
true that this title of the adopter category carries an invidious distinction (in much
the same way that “lower class” is a negative nomenclature). Laggard is a bad
name because most non laggards have a strong pro-innovation bias. Diffusion
scholars who use adopter categories in their research do not mean any particular
disrespect by the term “laggard.” Indeed if they used any other term instead of
laggards, it would soon have a similar negative connotation. Bit it is a mistake to
imply that laggards are somehow at fault for being relatively late to adopt; this is
an illustration of individual-blame where system-blame may more accurately
describe much of the reality of the laggards’ situation.
Laggards, as the term implies, are slow to adopt. They are the most resistant to
change and do so only when forced to adopt because everyone else has.
RATE OF ADOPTION:
The number of members of a society who start using a new technology or
innovation during a specific period of time. The rate of adoption is a relative
measure, meaning that the rate of one group is compared to the adoption of
another, often of the entire society.
Attributes of an innovation that affect the rate of adoption include the advantage
created by adopting the innovation, the ease at which the innovation can be
adopted into daily life, the ability of other members of society to see those who
have already adopted the innovation and the expense associated with trying the
innovation.
The adoption rate is part of the diffusion of innovations theory, which seeks to
explain how the use of new technologies, processes and innovations spreads
through a society, and why they are adopted over old methods.
One major factor that influences the rate of adoption is the type of society that is
being introduced to an innovation, as closed societies and societies without clear
communication between adopters and non-adopters are less likely to take on a
new technology.

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Topic: “Categories of Adopters”

 Name: Sana Nafees

Adopter categories were first described by sociologist Everett Rogers in his

• Trial: Experimental use a product when it’s possible.

• Adoption/Rejection: If favorable the adopter use the product if unfavorable

The salient value of the innovator is venturesomeness. He or she desires the

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