Executive Summary
Despite extensive research on consumer innovativeness, the literature does not contain a parsimonious construct that has been validated for use across countries, demographics, and product categories. Tellis, Yin, and Bell attempt to fill this gap by studying consumer innovativeness across 15 major world economies. Prior literature and their own observations suggest ten distinct measures of consumer innovativeness. The authors test which of these metrics are relevant for measuring consumer innovativeness and whether consumer demographics are significant predictors of consumer innovativeness.
Tellis, Yin, and Bell collected data from 5569 consumers across 15 major countries, including the leading world economies, such as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, India, and Brazil. The study produced three significant results. First, four negatively valenced items constitute a good construct of innovativeness that seems reasonably applicable across most countries. Second, although countries differ on this innovativeness construct, common demographic antecedents emerge across countries. A global innovator can be identified as wealthy, young, mobile, educated, and male. Third, within these commonalities, consumer innovativeness shows some distinct category × demographics and category × country differences.
The implications of the study are threefold. First, researchers need to be cautious when collecting information on consumers’ innovativeness and adoption of new products. The often-used positively valenced measures for innovativeness may suffer from social desirability bias. Second, despite the pressures of globalization and shortened product life cycles, managers should opt for a waterfall strategy of introducing new products (one country at a time), rather than a sprinkler strategy (introducing simultaneously into all countries), given that countries differ systematically in innovativeness in general, as well as in specific categories. Finally, the finding that five key demographics consistently predict innovativeness across countries can provide guidance for marketers’ segmentation efforts.
Consumers’ eagerness for new products varies substantially by product category and demographics. In particular, women are more eager to buy home appliances, cosmetics, and food and grocery products, while men are more eager to buy automobiles and sporting goods. Younger consumers (those between 20 and 29 years) are more eager to buy automobiles than other age groups. Highly educated consumers are more eager to buy financial services. Finally, consumers whose income exceeds US$20,000 and those without children are more eager to buy sporting goods and financial services than those in other income groups.
Consumers’ eagerness for new products varies substantially by product category and country. Respondents in almost all countries indicate a much higher eagerness for new products in food than in any other category. This eagerness is highest in Sweden, Canada, and Italy and lowest in India, Korea, China, and Brazil. Brazilians show a higher eagerness for new products in cosmetics than in any other category. Indians show almost the same low level of eagerness for new products in cosmetics and sporting goods that they do in food. Japanese have the highest level of eagerness for new products in the high-tech category.
Biography
Gerard J. Tellis (PhD Michigan) is Director of the Center for Global Innovation, Neely Chair of American Enterprise, and Professor of Marketing in the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is an expert in quality, innovation, new product growth, global diffusion, market entry, advertising, and pricing. He has published four books and more than 100 articles that have won over 15 awards, including the Frank M. Bass Award, William F. O’Dell Award, Harold D. Maynard Award (twice), and the Vijay Mahajan Award for lifetime contributions to marketing strategy. He is a trustee of the Marketing Science Institute and Senior Research Associate and Visiting Chair of Innovation, Marketing, and Strategy at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. Previously, he worked as a sales development manager for Johnson & Johnson. He is an associate editor of Journal of Marketing Research and has been on the editorial review boards of Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Science for several years.
Eden Yin is University Lecturer in Marketing in the Judge Business School at University of Cambridge. He received his PhD from the Marshall Business School, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His principal research interests are new product growth, consumer innovativeness, and the role of network effects in driving the success or failure of high-tech products. His research has been published in Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Management International Review, and others.
Simon Bell is Chair and Professor of Marketing at University of Melbourne and a Fellow of Judge Business School at University of Cambridge. He writes on a range of issues, including organizational learning, internal marketing and sales force management, services and relationship marketing, customer loyalty, and social networks and regional clusters. His research has focused on the retail and financial services industries and has been published in journals such as Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, and Academy of Management Review.
J International Marketing, Volume 17, Number 2, June 2009
View Table of Contents.