Diffusion of Innovation: How New Ideas and Products Spread

Why a study of Iowa farmers explains iPhones, artificial intelligence and the fact that most customers would rather let somebody else go first

In 1928, Iowa farmers were offered a better type of corn.

Hybrid seed promised stronger plants, improved yields and greater resistance to difficult growing conditions.

You might expect farmers to have rushed towards it.

They did not.

Some experimented immediately. Others watched those experiments from the safety of the next field. Many waited years before changing, even as evidence of the benefits accumulated around them.

The seed may have been new.

Human behaviour was not.

The Farmers Who Planted a Marketing Theory

In 1941, sociologists Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross interviewed 259 farmers across two Iowa communities to understand how hybrid seed corn had spread.

Their research, published in 1943, showed a pattern that would later become familiar to marketers everywhere.

Adoption began slowly.

A small number of farmers took the risk. Their neighbours watched. Positive experiences spread through conversations and visible results. Adoption then accelerated rapidly before eventually slowing as almost everyone willing to change had done so.

The pattern formed an S-shaped curve.

Ryan and Gross also uncovered an important distinction between learning about an innovation and deciding to use it.

Farmers might first hear about hybrid seed through agricultural salespeople, publications or official sources. But when it came to actually planting it, the experiences of neighbouring farmers became particularly important.

Advertising could introduce the idea.

People reduced the risk.

The Ryan and Gross research became one of the foundations of what we now call the Diffusion of Innovation theory.

Everett Rogers Joins the Dots

In 1962, communications scholar Everett Rogers published Diffusion of Innovations.

Rogers brought together hundreds of studies from agriculture, education, medicine, sociology and other fields to explain how new ideas spread through populations.

He defined diffusion as the process through which an innovation is communicated over time among members of a social system.

The word innovation is important.

It does not need to describe something that has just been invented. It only needs to be perceived as new by the person or organisation encountering it.

Contactless payment may feel completely ordinary to one customer and mildly futuristic to another who is still suspicious of chip and PIN.

Innovation is relative.

The Five Types of Adopter

Rogers divided adopters into five broad groups according to how quickly they accepted an innovation.

These categories are often shown as a bell curve, while total adoption over time creates the famous S-shaped curve.

These categories are often shown as a bell curve, while total adoption over time creates the famous S-shaped curve.

The names can be misleading, particularly the slightly judgemental word laggards.

They are not fixed personality types.

A person might be an innovator with music technology, part of the early majority with cars and an enthusiastic laggard when their employer introduces a new expenses system.

The category depends on the innovation, the context and the risk involved.

Innovators: Someone Has to Press the Button

Innovators are the first people willing to experiment.

They tolerate uncertainty, incomplete instructions, inconvenient bugs and the possibility that the product may disappear six months after they buy it.

They are attracted by novelty itself.

For marketers, innovators can be useful testers. They generate feedback, uncover problems and demonstrate that somebody is willing to use the product.

But they are not always representative of the wider market.

An innovator may tolerate an installation process requiring three cables, a screwdriver and a suspicious-looking download from an online forum.

Your average customer would rather the thing simply worked.

Early Adopters: Buying the Future

Early adopters arrive next.

They are still comfortable taking risks, but they are usually more selective than innovators.

They are not buying an unfinished gadget simply because it flashes. They are buying what it might allow them to become, reflecting the way people often buy identities rather than products alone.

Early adopters are often influential within their communities. Other people watch their decisions because they appear knowledgeable, connected or ahead of the curve.

This makes them exceptionally valuable to marketers.

They do not just adopt an innovation.

They interpret it for everyone else.

The most effective marketing to early adopters therefore concentrates on vision, possibility and advantage. These customers want to understand how the innovation could change their work, identity or position.

The Early Majority: Where Marketing Gets Difficult

The early majority is interested in progress but less interested in becoming part of the product-development department.

They want proof.

They want testimonials from customers who resemble them, case studies from recognisable organisations and the kind of social proof that reduces uncertainty. They also want evidence that the product will integrate with whatever they already use.

They are not asking:

Could this change everything?

They are asking:

Does it work, and will buying it create a massive administrative nightmare?

This is where many innovations stall.

The exciting language that attracted early adopters may worry the early majority.

“Revolutionary” sounds exciting when you enjoy risk.

When you are responsible for a department of 70 people, it can sound like several weekends ruined by technical support calls.

The Late Majority: Waiting Until It Becomes Normal

The late majority approaches innovation with scepticism.

These customers usually adopt after a substantial proportion of the market has already moved.

By this stage, the product is likely to be cheaper, easier to use and supported by a more mature ecosystem.

The risk of adoption has fallen.

But the risk of not adopting has increased.

The late majority does not necessarily need to love the innovation. It needs to believe that the innovation has become established, reliable and difficult to avoid.

Marketing therefore shifts again.

The message is no longer “be among the first”.

It becomes “you will not be left behind”.

Laggards: The Last People Standing

Laggards are the final group to adopt.

They may distrust the innovation, dislike the people promoting it, lack the resources to change or see no meaningful advantage in doing so.

Sometimes their caution is entirely reasonable.

History is full of supposedly revolutionary products that disappeared shortly after a few enthusiastic conference presentations.

Laggards may only change when the old option becomes unavailable, unaffordable or socially inconvenient.

They did not necessarily decide that streaming was wonderful.

The local video shop closed.

The Biggest Mistake: One Message for Everyone

The Diffusion of Innovation model exposes a common marketing mistake.

Brands often use the same message throughout an entire product launch.

But, as effective segmentation and targeting should recognise, different groups are buying for different reasons.

Innovators want novelty.

Early adopters want competitive or personal advantage.

The early majority wants evidence.

The late majority wants reassurance.

Laggards want to understand why they can no longer continue as before.

A message designed to excite innovators may frighten the majority. A message designed to reassure the majority may bore innovators senseless.

The product has not changed.

The customer’s perception of risk has.

The Five Questions Every Innovation Must Answer

Rogers identified five characteristics that influence how quickly an innovation is likely to spread.

1. Relative Advantage

Is the innovation perceived as better than what it replaces?

The advantage might involve price, speed, convenience, status, profitability or enjoyment.

It does not matter that the company believes the product is better.

The customer must see the improvement.

2. Compatibility

Does the innovation fit the customer’s existing values, habits, equipment and way of working?

A product can offer an enormous theoretical advantage and still fail because adoption requires customers to rebuild everything around it.

The less behaviour people need to unlearn, the easier diffusion becomes.

3. Complexity

How difficult is the innovation to understand and use?

Complexity creates friction.

Customers may appreciate the eventual benefit but still decide that setup, training or maintenance sounds too painful.

Sometimes the greatest marketing improvement is not another campaign.

It is removing six steps from the product.

4. Trialability

Can people experiment before making a major commitment?

Free trials and demonstrations, alongside samples, pilot programmes and introductory packages, reduce uncertainty.

Hybrid seed spread partly because farmers could test it on a small section of land rather than immediately gambling the entire farm.

A small first step makes a large change feel safer.

5. Observability

Can other people see the results?

Visible innovations are easier to discuss and imitate.

A smartphone, electric car or fashionable trainer advertises its own adoption whenever somebody uses it in public.

Invisible innovations need more deliberate evidence through reviews, demonstrations, testimonials and case studies.

If customers cannot see the benefit, marketers must make it visible.

Why Innovation Spreads in an S-Curve

At first, adoption is slow because few people have experience of the innovation.

There is limited evidence, high uncertainty and nobody sensible to ask.

As innovators and early adopters begin using it, more people can observe the results. Conversations spread. Reviews accumulate. Prices may fall and the product improves.

Adoption accelerates.

Eventually, most willing customers have adopted. Growth slows and the curve begins to flatten.

This matters because marketers frequently misinterpret the early stage.

A slow beginning does not always mean the innovation has failed.

It may mean that the market has not yet accumulated enough proof.

Equally, enthusiastic early adopters do not guarantee mass acceptance.

A product can become extremely popular among people who enjoy novelty without ever solving the practical concerns of everyone else.

Marketing Innovation Is Really Marketing Risk

Customers rarely reject innovation simply because they hate progress.

They reject uncertainty.

Will it work?

Will it cost more than promised?

Will my colleagues use it?

Will I look foolish if it fails?

Will the company still exist next year?

The role of marketing changes as an innovation spreads because the source of uncertainty changes.

Early marketing must explain the opportunity.

Later marketing must remove the risk.

Not Every Innovation Deserves to Spread

The theory can create what Rogers himself described as a pro-innovation bias: the assumption that adoption is desirable and resistance is a problem to be overcome.

That is not always true.

Some innovations are expensive, unnecessary, harmful or simply worse than the systems they replace.

Customers who refuse them may not be ignorant.

They may be correct.

Marketers should therefore avoid treating the adoption curve as a machine for forcing everyone towards the latest product.

It is a framework for understanding how people evaluate change.

What Marketers Can Learn From Diffusion of Innovation

Do Not Launch to “Everyone”

Identify the customers most prepared to tolerate uncertainty and give them a reason to experiment.

Turn Early Customers Into Evidence

Reviews, demonstrations, case studies and referrals help later adopters see that the innovation works outside a carefully controlled presentation.

Change the Message as the Market Changes

Move from novelty and vision towards reliability, compatibility and reassurance as adoption expands.

Make the First Step Smaller

Trials, samples and pilot programmes allow customers to experience the innovation without accepting the full risk.

Remember That Products Spread Through People

Mass communication creates awareness, but trusted word of mouth often makes adoption feel safe.

Your most persuasive advertisement may be somebody saying:

We tried it. It works.

The MMC View

The Diffusion of Innovation theory explains why being better is not enough.

An innovation must be understood, trusted, tested and eventually normalised.

The first customers buy possibility.

The next customers buy proof.

The final customers buy because continuing without it has become more difficult than changing.

That is why the same product needs different marketing as it moves through the market.

The Iowa farmers were not foolish for waiting.

They were managing risk.

They watched the people around them, tested the seed on small sections of land and changed when the evidence became convincing.

Nearly a century later, customers are doing exactly the same thing.

Only now the field is full of artificial intelligence platforms, subscription services and somebody insisting that their new app will “revolutionise productivity”.

TL;DR

• Diffusion of Innovation explains how new ideas and products spread through a social system over time.
• The theory was popularised by Everett Rogers in 1962 and developed from earlier research including the adoption of hybrid corn among Iowa farmers.
• Rogers divided adopters into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.
• Each group has a different appetite for risk and therefore requires different marketing.
• Adoption is influenced by relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability.
• The central lesson is that early customers buy possibility, while mainstream customers buy proof.