Fashion innovativeness, fashion diffusion and brand sensitivity among adolescents

Using Rogers’ theory of diffusion of innovation, this paper reports the results of a study that had two objectives: the first objective was to compare the number of male and female adolescents in each of Rogers’ five categories of consumer adopters. The second, was to verify if there were differences among the five distinct categories of adopters with respect to brand sensitivity. Results show that, as with other market segments, there are more female than male adolescents in the categories “innovators” and “early adopters”, and more male than female adolescents in the categories “late majority” and “laggards”. Further, it appears that brand sensitivity is an increasing function of fashion “adoptiveness” among adolescents.