ICT-innovations today: making traditional diffusion patterns obsolete, and preliminary insight of increased importance

Two main lessons that can be learned from the current ICTʹs environment, are that the traditional adoption and diffusion pattern cannot be taken for granted anymore, and that preliminary user insight is becoming of increased importance. The first aim of this paper is to present an adjusted form of this traditional theoretical pattern that better fits todayʹs practice. A pattern that is double-peaked, instead of the smoothly bell-shaped one we are familiar with. Secondly, we would like to present the PSAP (Product Specific Adoption Potential)-scale as a tool to obtain the necessary consumer insights before the actual introduction of an ICT-innovation. These insights enable communication and marketing departments to be better prepared for innovation introductions, in order to have the best chances on reaching both peaks in the adoption curve. Illustrations are based on two cases in which an innovation segmentation is made for digital television (2001, N=624) and third generation mobile telephony (2003, N=1006) in Belgium.