By Kinnick Wheaton, Account Coordinator
Over the past two decades, techonological innovation and consumer expectation have changed dramatically making marketing according to consumer expectation more important than ever.
As technological innovation speeds to satisfy consumer needs, consumer expectations increase to mirror technological innovation. And so the cycle continues.
Over the last decade, evidence of this rapidly evolving pattern is everywhere. “We have entered a period of history where digital technologies are driving massive disruption and incredibly rapid change in consumer behavior and expectation,” explains Jeremy Lockhorn in the ClickZ article, “The Expectation Epidemic.” In particular, Lockhorn identifies the innovation of apps and the touch screen as the catalysts for the rapid speed increase in the Technology Adoption Lifecycle—a purchasing philosophy created in the 1950’s.
Joe M. Bohlen and George M. Beal first introduced the Technology Adoption Lifecycle in 1957 at Iowa State University. The original purpose of this process was to analyze the purchasing pattern of farmers buying hybrid corn. The process is measured by the actions of five groups of technology adopters: the innovators, the early adopters, the early majority, the late majority and the laggards. In the last few years, the rate at which technology is adopted by each these groups has increased significantly.
Lockhorn suggests that the success of the touch screen, revolutionized by Apple, shot the Technology Adoption Lifecycle into hyper-speed. Using a poignant description of an experience he had watching a little girl trying to interact with an iMac in Versailles, Lockhorn reiterates his point: ignoring the presence of the keyboard and mouse, the little girl stared at the screen and touched it with her finger, progressively becoming more frustrated as the computer failed to respond. In her lifetime, technology has responded to just the touch of a finger. Even the presumed laggards aren’t lagging anymore.
Over the 1990’s, consumer demand for cell phones grew steadily. 2005 brought a brief Motorola Razor Flip Phone craze, but it wasn’t until the 2007 introduction of the Apple iPhone that our phones became as much as part of us as the fingers we use to text with.
After the iPhone, technological innovation imitating the phone’s success grew exponentially. Soon after the iPhone came the iTunes App Store, the iPad and, well, the rest is fairly obvious unless you’ve lived in an abandoned mining shaft in Leadville over the past four years. Today, we live in a world where technology changes almost daily and consumers expect nothing less.
The rapid adoption of apps revolutionized consumer expectation in the cycle of technological adoption. Consumers now expect not just a good online brand experience; they also expect nearly seamless interaction. In a Harris Interactive study performed in October 2010, researchers found that “76% of mobile application users agree[d] that all brand name companies and organizations should have mobile apps to make shopping or interacting with them easier.” The researchers also found that 69% of mobile users reported a negative brand opinion after using a poorly performing or difficult brand app.
According Bohlen and Beal’s Technology Adoption Lifecycle model, marketing professionals should be racing to keep up with the increasingly demanding needs of their customers. And—based on a recent Forrester survey—they are. When asked, “How aggressive is your company when it comes to investing in marketing technology?” 53% of the consumer intelligence professionals surveyed reported that they view themselves as technology leaders. As technology leaders, they are the Technology Adoption Lifecycle’s early adopters and innovators. When asked, “Which of the following are you marketing organization’s top three Consumer Intelligence themes?” Consumer Intelligence professionals ranked improving the online customer experience, improving the multichannel customer experience, and implementing a system to measure the success of marketing campaigns as their top three priorities.
90octane understands the necessity of being able to track consumer interactions with online mediums. It is through this strategic measurement that marketers can stay ahead of consumer technology expectations. Over the past few months, the adoption rate of tablet computer products among our B2C clients has increased rapidly. Recognizing this change, we have been able to tailor our marketing efforts to fit the needs and expectations of our clients and their consumers. Just one year after the first iPad was introduced, we produced our first iPad advertisement. As technology continues to change, so will 90octane’s work. As part of our commitment to our clients, we will always aim to be the innovators in our field.
