DISCUSS THE AIETA MODEL PRESENTED BY EVERETT ROGERS IN “DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS”

DISCUSS THE AIETA MODEL PRESENTED BY EVERETT ROGERS IN “DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS”

When one talks of the AIETA model, the first study that comes to mind is the process of advertising which plays the role as the communication function of marketing. Advertising plays a vital role in our everyday life which turns to influence our decision making on products, ideas and services. As a matter of fact, advertising ideas, services or goods determines an organization’s success, productivity and income and therefore requires a model to effectively execute the process. This invited most professors in the discipline to propose several of these models which are in a hierarchy to guide the advertiser in defining and executing his goal. One of these key proponents is Everett Rogers, who came up with the AIETA model in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations.

 Diffusion of Innovations according to Rogers is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. He said diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. He made known of the fact that, individuals progress through five stages which are; knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. By this study, he introduced the AIETA (awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption) model.

This model explains how individuals perceive and evaluate ideas that gets to them and turns to adopt those ideas. First, to be able to evaluate an idea or service, people must be aware of that service or product. They have to know it exist and be informed about the product, what it does and its benefit to them and this can be done through a mass media.

After creating that awareness, Rogers next take was getting those people to be interested in your idea. They have to develop a certain interest in the idea which you have presented to them and having given them more information on the product or service is a sure way of developing ones interest in a product. After which he or she begins to evaluate the idea.

People’s evaluation of a product or service will determine how exciting they are about the product. Looking at how it is going to benefit him, the kind of people using that particular product or service and how it looks like also counts at the evaluation stage and contributes to persuading them to try the product.

At this stage, an individual’s decision to consider and give a product or service a trial will highly depend on how well the awareness, interest and evaluation stage communicated. People will then begin to look for the product and give it a try before they finally adopt it. For instance, I may decide to give ONGA cooking spices a trial based on the personality presenting the advert and the fact that ONGA makes food taste better.

For Rogers, if a user is able to test an innovation, the individual will be more likely to adopt it. He/she accepts the innovation wholeheartedly. He however labeled four types of adopters of any new innovation or idea as early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Explaining that, each adopter's willingness and ability to adopt an innovation depends on the entire model, their awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. Also People can fall into different categories of adopters for different innovations. For instance, a provisions shop owner may be an early adopter of a new food product like tin tomatoes but may fall under the late majority category when it comes to technological innovation.

Although the AIETA model being widely accepted by most advertisers among several models have received similar criticisms. According to Michael A. Belch, critiques of hierarchy models stem from a number of legitimate considerations. Included among these are; treating each stage as independent – for example, the ability to separate cognition and affect, or to determine which comes first; and the fact that consumers must move through an ordered sequence. Arguments that the order may be reversed (for example trial preceding evaluation) or skipped have merit.

However, the AIETA model remains a very effective model in the process of advertising and is still preferred by most advertisers.

    REFERENCES

Rogers, Everett M. (1962, 1983), Diffusion of Innovations, retrieved from the Internet.

Michael A. Belch, Consumer Decision Models You Can Use for Your Business, retrieved from the Internet.

T.A Shimp (2000), Advertising Promotion.

W.D. Perreault & J. McCarthy (1997), Essentials of Marketing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

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