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Learning - Consumer adoption of product innovations

4 important questions on Learning - Consumer adoption of product innovations

Three types of innovations based on their degree of uniqueness

- Continuous
- Dynamically continuous
- Discontinuous

Why do so many new innovations fail?

Because for consumers new products means learning whether the new products are really better for their needs. More importantly, they have to learn new tastes as well as new habits.

Good innovations have six desirable attributes that help adoption by consumers, name them:

- Relative advantage: how much better the innovation is compared to the current product for which it would substitute.
- Perceived risk: uncertainty about whether a relative advantage will accrue and whether any unanticipated harm will occur.
- Complexity: difficulty involved in understanding an innovation
- Communicability: extent to which an innovation is socially visible or is otherwise easy to communicate about in social groups
- Compatibility: with behavior (no need to alter behavioral routines) and values (consistency with deeply held values)
- Trialability: extent to which it is possible to try out the innovation on a smaller scale.

Which learning model do innovation adopters use?

All four of them:
- Cognitive learning: they read about benefits and relative advantage of the innovation.
- Instrumental learning: with trialability and behavioral/value compatibility rewards can be provided.
- Modeling: if you are not a pioneer in adopting the innovation, you look to others for guidance.
- Classical conditioning: marketers choose how to position the new product, the image the consumer develops as result of these positioning props or setting is classical conditioning.