Content area
Abstract
Consumer innovativeness is the personality trait that predisposes people to buy new products. This trait has been defined as the desire for new experiences and can be differentiated as either cognitive or sensory. Based on a survey of 245 US head of households, segments of consumers who differ in their cognitive and sensory innovativeness tendencies are isolated. It is shown how different innovation characteristics effect their decision to adopt. This is true across 2 different types of innovations, the personal computer and the videocassette recorder, which suggests that innovativeness tendencies dominate innovation types in determining the importance of innovation characteristics in adoption. The findings suggest advertising and other communication messages that can be targeted to cognitive and sensory innovators. The findings also have implications for the design of warranty, operation instructions, manuals, service, and other augmented product features. The managerial relevance of these recommendations is enhanced by the fact that it is possible to identify and isolate cognitive and sensory innovators by their demographic characteristics.