CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS

Introduction
By innovativeness we mean the predisposition of a consumer to adopt a product earlier than most others. Innovators tend to be: opinion leaders, risk takers, more likely to obtain information from mass media than through word of mouth, open to new ideas and change, relatively young etc. Marketers want to identify the segment of the market that is most likely to adopt a new product when it is the first introduced.

Discussion
Launching new products and services on the market represents an important source of increasing the size of a business and the profits of a company. The success of introducing new products on the market is a critical issue of the current marketing programs. Innovativeness is one of the few concepts that is so important to the consumer behavior. The consumers tendency to adopt new products, ideas, goods or services. Innovativeness is a latent feature materialized in consumers preference for novelty and uncommon experiences. At the basic level, this preference motivates consumers to look for new, intellectually or emotionally challenges. Types of Innovativeness: There are two types of innovativeness: 1. Cognitive Innovativeness: Cognitive innovativeness refers to consumers tendency to think, to rationalize, and to solve problems or other mental exercises. The consumer is looking for new experiences that may stimulate these mental activities. To cognitive innovators the novelty of innovation is also important. They prefer processing the information verbally, establishing ratios between causes and effects. That is why, it is important to this type of innovators the

relative advantage of the product, which is utterly evaluated. Unlike the sensorial innovators, they have a low tolerance towards risk, and that is why the hedonistic risk has a negative impact on adopting the innovation. Being used to evaluate the products utterly, the financial risk, functional risk and complexity degree do not influence adopting decisions 2. Sensorial Innovativeness: Sensorial Innovativeness refers to consumers preferences for experiences that may stimulate their senses. Sensorial innovators prefer new things, are tolerant towards risk and satisfy their needs without a rational evaluation. Sensorial innovators prefer visual processing over a verbal processing. To sensorial innovators it is of importance the relative advantage of innovation. Due to the fact that they are tolerant towards risk, the hedonistic risk does not interfere with adopting the innovation.

Profile of Innovators Innovation adoption process and innovativeness have developed various profiles of innovators. Most of these studies have emphasized a similar conclusion, i.e.; there is a general portrait of the innovator, if we refer to discontinue innovation. The persons adopting the first discontinuous innovations posses the following basic traits: They are opinion leaders; They are tolerant toward risks; They are oriented from inside and independent from the norms of the belonging group; They prefer getting informed by mass media and are less interested in noncommercial sources such as oral communication or interpersonal relationships of the belonging group;

They are open to new ideas and changes; They are cosmopolites; They have a higher socio-economic standard (high income, higher education).

Personality Traits for Consumers Innovators: Dogmatism Rationality Intelligence Positive attitude toward changes Ability to face uncertainty Fatalism Motivation for achievement Strong aspiration to education, Higher professional position

Innovativeness characteristics:

and

Consumers

Demographic,

Social

and

Economic

There is a relation between innovativeness and consumers

demographic, social and economic characteristics. Consumers who adopt innovation have graduated from university; they have good jobs, a higher living standard and higher income. Innovativeness and Cultural values Culture is seen as a mediator between human nature, which is universal, and personality, particular to each person. It is personality that shows us how consumer is receptive to cultural standards. There are certain features which facilitate the relation between Culture and Innovation: Markets with a low degree of ethnocentrism tend to accept ideas and practices specific to a different culture, leading to higher degree of innovativeness. This means that on these markets the rate of innovation diffusion is higher.

Markets dominated by long-term orientation are made up of individuals who obey their duties and social status. They are characterized by their tendency of saving. The tendency to save money is, hypothetically, linked to acquiring greater resources which can be invested in communication technology development. The short- term orientation cultures are characterized by obeying the norms and social responsibilities and lower tendency of saving.

Markets with low uncertainty avoidance are characterized by a higher innovativeness than strong uncertainty avoidance markets where the sense of security is more important.

Time orientation is the cultural dimension describing a consumers time horizon he/she expects to get results. Short-term oriented cultures values traditions and obtaining results rapidly. Consumers are oriented to past and present, are sensitive to normative statements, and personal steadiness and stability, material possessions. Long-term oriented consumers tend to save more; expect to obtain results within a longer period of time. The conclusion is that this cultural dimension is negatively correlated with the diffusion rate of technological innovation.

Discussion
In conclusion we can say that consumer innovativeness is important for marketers to provide the ideas for future developments. The main features of comprising the study of consumer innovativeness are There is a general profile of innovators in discontinuous innovations. No general portrait of innovators in continuous innovation and dynamic continuous innovations could be identified. There are two dimensions to innovations: a technological and a symbolic one and they have effects on innovativeness. The education level influences the innovativeness. The income levels affect consumer receptivity to innovation.

The private or public nature of consumption is correlated with innovativeness. Innovativeness correlates positively or negatively with certain cultural values. Age has different influences on innovativeness depending on the selling price of the new product. There is a correlation between personality traits and consumer innovativeness. The main personality traits that have been identified as causes of innovativeness are: dogmatism, risk tolerance, autonomy, cognitive style, the inclination to seek novelty/variety.