Overcoming Consumer Resistance to Innovation

Some innovations take years to succeed as mainstream products. Examples of such

innovations include dishwasher, microwave oven, automatic teller machines, online banking
and alternative fuel vehicles. While no one sets out to develop an innovation that are slow to
adopt, a lot many times it takes years for the consumers to realise its true potential. This could
mean delay in realising the returns to investment or negative payback if the product is pulled
from the market before sales have a chance to take off. Slow take-off of innovative products
could be attributed to very high introductory prices, uncompetitive products, or failure to
develop niche markets. This resistance of consumers to adopt innovative products could arise
from the consumers ingrained belief structure and their deep-rooted traditions about the
methodology adopted to solve the problem. The looming question faced by the marketers, in
such situations, is to understand what kind of marketing programs should be adopted to reduce
the take-off time for resistant innovations.
Consumer behaviour responses to innovations are often overlooked when marketing
strategy is developed for innovative products. From the perspective of the consumers,
innovation may be either receptive or resistant. Receptive innovations are welcomed by the
market while the resistant are not. However, resistant innovations have a clear competitive
advantage over other products but are in conflict with the consumers belief structures and thus
it requires behavioural changes in the consumers. To adopt such resistant innovations, the
consumers are required to change their habits making it essential for the marketers to invest in
psychological switching costs as well as economic switching costs. While marketing an
innovative product it is not only the attributes of the product that are to be highlighted but it is
very much important to address the consumers mind-set regarding the innovation. Five
barriers are identified that consumers erect while resisting innovations which includes
incompatibility with existing workflows, inability to understand the value of the innovation,
risk averseness to innovation, need for deviation from established norms and traditions, and
image of the product.
An example of such resistance to innovation is the usage of screw caps for wine bottles.
Screw caps eliminated the issues of using poor quality corks which resulted in cork taints
giving the wine a musty flavour. While it had many benefits over the tradition corks, it faced
resistance from the consumers wherein the consumers perceived screw caps are cheap affecting
the brand image and it also led to a traditional barrier. Different marketing strategies were
adopted to diffuse the screw caps in the market but to no avail. Data from a survey conducted
in 2005 reveals that fewer than 10% of the Americans have adopted screw caps for their wine.
But the same is not true in the Australian and New Zealand market. The screw cap closure is
now well over the traditional cork usage in terms of acceptance in the minds of the consumers.
The use of horizontal cooperation, also known as coopetition is the key to success in the
Australian and New Zealand market.
There are two marketing strategies that are to be adopted for marketing innovations
vertical and horizontal cooperation. Vertical cooperation includes involvement of distribution
or supply chain in developing a marketing strategy directly addressing the consumers belief
structures. This ensures that the distributors are not resistant to change. Understanding of all
partners motives in the distribution chain is necessary to put together an effective vertical
marketing campaign. Horizontal cooperation involves competitors in developing a marketing
strategy for an innovation. Research shows that competing companies can effectively make use
of such diffusion to resistant innovation. Vertical cooperation marketing strategy is most
successful when the company has a vision to differentiate itself in the market. However, a
horizontal cooperative approach can also be hugely successful when businesses within the
same industry are facing the same problem. The companies can, thus, pursue an industry-level
goal while also focusing on its individual interests.
Coopetition as a marketing strategy worked very well in the Australian market. A
collaborative alliance was made to promote screw caps. This coalition launched a marketing
strategy together that communicated the quality aspects of the seal to the media, consumers
and the retailers. This initiative sough to send a unified signal to the market about the
commitment of the wineries to bring about a change in the market. One of the reason why there
was coopetition efforts in the NZ market and not the US market is that the US market was at a
mature phase and the wineries were concerned about the sunk costs while the NZ market was
relatively at a nascent stage and the competitors were more willing to share their research with
each other. Also NZ winemakers also characterise collaboration as part of their culture and
identity in contrast to the individualistic and competitive spirit of the American wineries.
If the goal of the introduction of innovation is purely competition then vertical
coopetition is an answer to the problem. But situations when common problems are to be solved
by the industry as a whole horizontal coopetition is the right answer. However, before deciding
on the right strategy managers must examine issues like scope of the marketing problem that
the new innovation faces, resource availability to address the issue, specificity of the resources
and knowledge that might be exchanged during coopetition, and the climate within the industry.
Also to work together industry actors must be compatible with each other. Compatibility could
be in terms of historical, philosophical and strategic backgrounds or common values,
experiences and principles, and common goals.
Relying on traditional marketing approach for innovations may not prove successful
and efforts will have to be made by the marketers to overcome these barriers of technological
resistance in the minds of the consumers. A coopetition marketing strategy may be successful
in such cases for overcoming resistance for innovation. Such a strategy sends a signal to the
consumers of serious, permanent changes in products or services thereby reducing the
consumers psychological switching costs. Coopetition, thus, brings about additional benefits
to participating companies like shared marketing costs, faster diffusion of market knowledge
and an increase in bargaining power in the global market.