The Consumer-Adoption Process
Adoption is an individual’s decision to become a regular user of a product and is followed by the consumer-loyalty process. New-product marketers typically aim at early adopters and use the theory of innovation diffusion and consumer adoption to identify them.
Stages in the Adoption Process
An innovation is any good, service, or idea that someone perceives as new, no matter how long its history. Everett Rogers defines the innovation diffusion process as “the spread of a new idea from its source of invention or creation to its ultimate users or adopters.”28 The consumer-adoption process is the mental steps through which an individual passes from first hearing about an innovation to final adoption.29 These five steps are: (1) awareness (consumer becomes aware of the innovation but lacks information about it), (2) interest (consumer is stimulated to seek information about the innovation), (3) evaluation (consumer considers whether to try the innovation), (4) trial (consumer tries the innovation to estimate its value), and (5) adoption (consumer decides to make full and regular use of the innovation).
