Dispositional innovators -- however you say it, they're not afraid to try something new

This thought didn't fit in yesterday's post on Private Label Strategy, but authors Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp brought up a fascinating and new (to me) concept with the unwieldy name listed in the title. As defined in the book:

"Dispositional innovativeness is the predisposition to buy new products and brands at an early stage, rather than to remain with previous choices and consumption patterns...." (p. 171)

Yeah, so what? So what is that these types of people (we'll call them DIs) are very important in the success of radically new products and services. Find and reach the DIs, say the authors, and your new product has a chance. Waste your marketing on the rest of us, and you might as well pull the product off the shelves now.

And even more interesting was Kumar and Steenkamp's assertion that different countries have very different levels of DIs. In Europe, the UK is 24 percent DIs, where Spain is only nine percent.

So, if you're trialing a new product, pick the UK over Spain every time. And the best test market of all, at least at the moment? The US of A. We'll try anything once.

(Picture by digital_a via stock.xchng)

innovation, adoption, marketing, product development