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technology products
Diffusion models
Diffusion Models designed to answer the following
questions:
• When will customers adopt a new product or
technology?
• How long before new product or technology
reaches peak sales?
• What will be the peak sales?
Frank Picture
Bass Model
New Durable Goods
• Objectives:
1: Forecast penetration curve Q(t) (Qumulative sales
at time t) and product life cycle sales rate curve
S(t)
2: Provide diagnostic information
• Time to peak sales
• Capacity needed at peak sales
• CAVEAT: Category level model not brand level
Applications
1. Companies
a) Eastman Kodak.
b) Dow Chemicals
c) IBM.
d) Sears.
e) AT&T etc.
2. Applications
a) Retail Service.
b) Industrial Technology.
c) Educational.
d) Pharmaceutical.
e) Consumer Durable Goods
Applications…
• In 1980, the U.S. department of Energy used the Bass
model to forecast the adoption of solar batteries. It
performed a survey of home builders to assess their
perceptions of the marketplace to obtain reasonable
values for p and q. Feeding them into the model, the
researchers came to the conclusion that the technology
was not far enough along to generate positive word‐of‐
mouth. As a consequence, they decided to postpone wide
scale introduction until the technology had improved
enough so that users would be quite satisfied with it,
resulting in a higher q and hence faster sales growth after
launch.
Applications…
• In the early 1990s, DirecTV planned the launch of
its subscription satellite television service. It
wanted to obtain pre‐launch forecasts over a five‐
year horizon. The forecast were based on the
Bass model, and the values for its parameters
were obtained from a survey of stated intentions
combined with the history of analogous products.
The forecasts obtained in 1992 proved to be quite
good in comparison with actual subscriptions
over the five‐year period from 1994 to 1999.
Applications….
• Several firms have reported using the Bass model
to their satisfaction. Often, they end up extending
the simple model to further aid their decision
making. In the mid‐1980s, RCA used an extension
of the Bass model to forecast the sales of music
CDs as a function of the sales of CD players. The
model was quite accurate in its predications. Some
movie exhibitors in Europe now use an extension of
the Bass model to forecast box office revenues for
movies, and to decide on how many screens to
show a movie.
Assumptions
• Diffusion process is binary
– (consumer either adopts, or waits to adopt)
• Constant maximum potential number of buyers (N)
• Eventually, all N will buy the product
• No repeat purchase, or replacement purchase
• The impact of the word‐of‐mouth is independent of
adoption time
• Innovation is considered independent of substitutes
• The marketing strategies supporting the innovation are
not explicitly included
Multi‐year forecast for DirectTV
1993 Bass Model Forecast of Satellite TV Subscriptions Under Scenario Chosen
By Management Compared With Actual, 1994-1999 (99 Projected from February)
12
0
94-95 95-96 96-97 97-98 98-99*
Year
Rapid Diffusion Like Cable in 80's and Lower Potential 16% of TV Homes
Measured Actual Number of Television Homes
Constructing the model
• Market of Potential size N
• Market consists of two types of consumers
– Innovators
• Innovators are intrinsic adopters and depend upon
advertising, product reviews, etc.
– Imitators
• Imitators depend upon their word‐of‐mouth
interactions with those who have previously adopted
the product (these folks can be either innovators or
imitators)
At any given time (t+1)…
…there are two pools of customers: those who have already
adopted, Q(t) and those who have yet to adopt (N – Q(t))
• Of the people (N – Q(t)) who are yet to adopt….
– A fraction (p) will adopt since they are “innovators”
– A fraction (q) will adopt since they are “imitators”
• So at t+1, the amount of sales to innovators will
be
– p(N – Q(t))
• Will the amount of sales to imitators be
– q(N‐Q(t))?
Amount of sales to imitators at (t+1)
• Recall that imitators depend on their word‐of‐mouth
interactions with innovators to facilitate their
adoption
• Thus, the greater the number of people who have
previously adopted and who can engage in WOM, the
greater will be the impact on the imitators
• The interaction effect is obtained by “ineracting” the
fraction of imitators q(N‐Q(t)) with the proportion of
the population that has already adopted: Q(t)/N
• Hence sales to imitators will be:
– q(N‐Q(t))Q(t)/N = (q/N)Q(t)(N – Q(t))
Total sales at time (t+1), S(t+1)
• From regression we know that interactions are
represented by the product of the variables. So
the total number of interactions are given by =
Q(t)*(N‐Q(t)) and of these interactions, (q/N)
result in imitation
• 3 unknown parameters: p, q, and N
Simple example
• N = 100
• p = 0.03
• q = 0.10
2. Reasonable to assume that we know potential market
size N for the new product.
3. Popular approach is obtaining p and q is via analogy
• Get p and q from a "similar" set of products and then tinker
with them to come up with p and q for the product in
question.
4. When forecasting the sales of CD players, RCA looked
at the sales of VCRs and other stereo equipment.
Estimation
5. OK. Suppose we knew the sales of VCRs over time, how
do we figure out p and q?
6. Look at the sales equation S(t+1) again.
7. We can write this as: S(t+1) = pN + (q‐p)*Q(t) ‐
(q/N)*Q(t)2
8. Or, S(t+1) = a + b*Q(t) + c* Q(t)2
9. This is a multiple regression of sales on the LAGGED
cumulative sales and cumulative sales squared. But
these we know if we know the sales of VCRs over time
(point 5 above)
Setting up the data matrix
S(t+1) = a + b*Q(t) + c* Q(t)2
Time Sales Cumulative Cumulative
2 2
period S(t+1) Lag: Q(t) Lag : Q(t)
1 100 ‐ ‐
2 120 100 10000
3 160 220 48400
4 250 380 144440
5 400 630 Etc.
6 650 1030
7 800 1680
8 750 2480
9 650 3230
3 unknown parameters: p, q, and N
11. By running the regression, we get a, b and c for the regression
equation for VCRs
12. From a, b and c, calculate p, q and N because a = p*N, b = (q‐p), c =
‐ q/N
13. Note: You will have to use the formula to solve quadratic
equations or use Solver in Excel to do step 12 above. Remember if
you have a quadratic of the for fx2 + gx + h=0, then this equation
has two roots given by:
g g 4fh
2
x
2f
Also note that only one of the roots will be OK because
remember that p, q and N are all > 0.
14. Given knowledge of N for CD players, and assuming p and q are
similar to those for VCRs, forecast using the Bass model equation.
15. Assess the sensitivity of the forecasts by varying p, q and N.
Best guess of p
Vanden Bulte 2002
Best guess for q
Bass model parameters for information products
Adoption of VCR’s
Actual and Fitted Adoption VCR's
1980-1989
12000
10000
Adoption in Thousands
8000
Actual Adoption
6000
Fitted Adoption
4000
2000
0
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
Year
Updating the forecast
• Once CD players are actually introduced, we will
know the actual sales levels for this product.
• We can then compare our forecasts from the
Bass model with those from the actual data and
"tweak" the values of p and q so as to make the
Bass model forecasts close to the actual sales
levels.
• Then, we can use the model to make forecasts
for future time periods
Other uses of the Bass model
• Capacity determination: “Peak" sales from the model
is given by N(p+q)2/(4q). So given p, q and N, firms
can determine their capacities based on how much
of the market they think they can capture
• Timing of the capacity coming online: The "time to
peak" of the Bass model is given by (1/(p+q))*ln(q/p).
This tells us when our capacity needs to come on‐line
Extensions of the Bass model
• Incorporating marketing variables. Typically done by making p, q
and N functions of marketing variables. If we think innovation
depends on advertising, we can specify p = x + y*A(t) where A(t) is
advertising at time t. Allows p to vary over time.
• Incorporating repeat purchase behavior. First consider the simple
case of first repeats only (in addition to the first time purchase we
have already modeled). To incorporate repeat purchase behavior
we need to know the frequency of repeat purchases. Suppose
consumers repurchase every "k" time periods. But only some
fraction "g" of those folks who purchased at time (t‐k) will buy at
time t. Then, sales at time t will be: S(t) = p*(N‐Q(t‐1)) +
(q/N)*Q(t‐1)*(N‐Q(t‐1)) + g*S(t‐k). Gets complicated once we
start incorporating second and later repeats because we need to
keep track of how many folks have purchased once, twice, thrice,
etc. For situations beyond first time repeaters, there are other
models that are more frequently used.
Color TV Forecast 1966
Color TV
7000
6000
5000
Sale s (x 1000)
4000
Sales
Predicted
3000
2000 Industry Built
Peak in
Capacity For
1000 1968
14 million units
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Ye ar
Some findings..
• There are systematic regional differences in diffusion patterns.
• The average coefficient of innovation p (speed of take‐off) in Europe
and Asia is roughly half of that in the U.S.
• The average coefficient of imitation q (speed of late growth) in Asia
is roughly a quarter less than that in the U.S. and Europe.
• Also, economic differences explain national variations in speed
better than cultural differences do.
• There are systematic product differences in diffusion patterns. For
instance, take‐off is slower for non‐durables and products with
competing standards that require heavy investments in
infrastructure, while late growth is faster for industrial products and
products with competing standards which require heavy
investments in infrastructure.
Conclusions
• Bass model has many advantages and widely used
• Useful starting point for more sophisticated
models
• Important to recognize its limitations especially
when there is repeat purchase behavior,
successive generations, marketing variables, etc.
• More importantly, it is a category level model not
a brand level model