Published:
04/24/2012 08:47pm
Developing a successful Marketing Strategy by Understanding Consumer Resistance, Adoption, and Diffusion
Whether a consumer will resist, adopt or diffuse a new product or service depends largely on consumers’ learning requirements. It is important to understand this trend to address any reasons that lead consumers to resist a product or service and implement a marketing strategy that will minimize consumer resistance and maximize adoption.
Consumer Resistance
If consumer learning requirements are high, meaning that consumers have to spend resources such as time or money to learn about a new product, consumers are more likely to resist the product and less likely to adopt it, because continuing to use the already familiar product would be “easier” and require less or no consumer learning. Another reason that will increase the probability of resistance is high risk involved in purchasing the product as well as a low need for change and cognition.
Consumer Diffusion
Diffusion would be affected in that a higher percentage of the population would be in a later adopter group, because more time would pass before consumers learned more about the product and were comfortable to purchase it.
Influence of Social Relevance
Social relevance affect consumers’ resistance or adoption of a product depending on what they want society to think of them (their personality, values, and lifestyle) and their characteristics.
For example, if someone wants to be thought about by society as being venturesome (characteristic) and an Innovator, they will adapt an innovation immediately after it enters the market. However, if someone wants to be viewed as traditional, they will not purchase the product until a lot of time has passed and the product is in its maturity or decline stage.
Consumer Adoption
This means that social relevance affects diffusion depending on the percentage of consumers who either want to be viewed as venturesome and adopt products immediately after they enter the market, respectable and adopt the product early in relation to other adopter groups, deliberate and be in the early majority adopter group, skeptical and be the late majority in terms of adopter groups, or traditional and be in the adopter group of laggards.
