Among the many things that differentiate individuals on this earth, there is also what we australia phone number list could define as the personal “propensity to adopt innovations”. In other words, there are those who are enthusiastic about testing the latest market or technology discoveries and those who, instead, have a more conservative approach and tend to replicate their own habits, their purchasing and consumption behaviors.
Just look at your own personal experience: you surely know someone who is keen to be the first to experiment with new technological gadgets, and someone who is instead uninterested until the novelty is completely accepted and absorbed by the habits of the masses.
This phenomenon was formalized in 1962 by sociologist Everett Mitchell Rogers, who created a graphic diagram known as the “innovation adoption curve,” or Rogers Curve, to analyze it.
The Rogers Curve was therefore born for sociological investigations, but as often happens it has become a tool for further understanding at the service of those who want to refine their marketing strategies.
In particular, this tool helps us when our goal is to promote a product/service with highly innovative content.
What is meant by innovation?
Before we start talking about the Rogers Curve, it is important to clarify that the term “innovation” in this case refers to the adoption of a behavior that is different from the previous one; it is therefore not necessarily something that only speaks of the technological market.
Let's think about fashion, for example, where proposals for cuts or colors that were simply unusual before are constantly emerging. Paradoxically, the use of a natural discovery, inspired by tradition, instead of a mass-consumed synthetic product is also innovation.
In other cases, innovation may concern the way in which a certain product is distributed or supplied: the transition to e-commerce was an innovation, but the creation of Solidarity Purchasing Groups was also an innovation; in this case, the element of novelty is not given by the use of particular technologies but only by the adoption of a different purchasing model, which implies new habits for the consumer.
In all these cases, there will be those who are more inclined to experiment and those who will adapt to new habits when they are consolidated; we will have individual preferences depending on the sector (there is the high-tech enthusiast and the organic one, for example) but generally those who are more inclined to experiment are so in all fields and areas, because we are talking about a trait specific to the person.
The Rogers Curve, in brief
Obviously, there is a middle ground between those who are enthusiastic about innovation and those who are totally resistant.
Based on his studies, Rogers came to identify five different groups through a curve with a regular distribution and which also indicates the size of each. These are obviously numbers not to be considered precise (it is very difficult to find numbers of this type in sociology!) but they are a valuable guide in many cases.
The five groups identified by Rogers are:
The Innovators (or Innovators ), equal to 2.5% of the members of a social system.
They are the enthusiasts of novelties: they have a high propensity for risk, they seek out new ideas and new experiences.
Early Adopters, equal to 13.5%.
They are attracted by novelties, but have a lower propensity for risk than we saw in the first group. For them, flaunting novelties is also a way to gain and maintain influence in their social group, always appearing cutting-edge and fashionable: among friends, or perhaps among followers on social media.