Children´s Impact Upon the Adoption of Product Innovations by Grown Ups

The development of product innovations has always been a critical success factor as it is generally believed that “products or services that remain unchanged will sooner or later die” (Czinkota & Kotabe, 2001, p. 269). A major problem is that a high number of product innovations fail to become successful and cost companies a lot of money. It is estimated that the new-product-failure rate represents 90% of innovations (Urban et al., 1987; in: Lunsford & Burnett, 1992, p. 54).



The launch process is particulary interesting from a marketing point of view and the theories of adoption and diffusion of innovations can help to reduce the number of product failures as they enable marketers to segment and target their market efficiently, which is a crucial factor in the introductory stage of a new product (De Marez & Verleye, 2004, p. 33). One of the most important target groups are people adopting new products ahead of the mass market, the “innovators” and “early adopters” as Everett Rogers named them.



In many cases, children are very advanced consumers, and in the adoption and diffusion process of new technologies they often are part of the “early adopter group” (Webster, 1995, p. 1). Moreover, the influencial impact of family members in the family decision making process has altered during the last years - children´s relative power has increased, among others due to changes in values, in family structures, and increasing media exposure.



It is the aim of this project to identify 10-14 years old children´s potential impact upon their parents adoption of consumer electronics.



Research design combines qualitative methods (diary method and focus group discussions) with quantitative research (survey). Results are expected by the end of 2005, and are to be published in top journals.