Diffusion of the Innovation

Abstract

Imagine being the inventor of, say, a clock radio but not having enough money or marketing knowledge to introduce the product to the marketplace. This is supposedly what happened when GE developed the clock radio. Similarly, some 40 years ago there was a rumor that the inventor of the Xerox machine tried to sell his product for 10 years and died broke. These stories may be apocryphal, but as Samli and Weber (2000) pointed out, of 147 potential breakthroughs only 29 survived for 10 years. They called these 29 products “breakthroughs.” Serious radical innovations are even rarer and their survival is not at all guaranteed, as it depends on whether the marketplace is ready to accept them. About 40 years ago the marketplace was more conservative. It did not adopt new products readily, and the more different and unusual the innovation was, the slower the market was in adopting it. Some four decades later, the marketplace is not nearly as conservative. But today it is even more difficult to introduce a radical innovation and expect a quick success, because of the sophistication of the consumers, the complexity of competing products, and higher technological capabilities.