Abstract:
The initial motive for undertaking this research, was a desire to better understand those
factors which were said to affect the diffusion of ethnic foods. In attempting to develop
the general methodology for this study, the author revisited seminal studies on
diffusion of innovations, word-of-mouth, opinion leadership, and innovator / early
adopter influence. During this process, the author discovered Feick and Price's (1987),
emergent "Market Maven", theory. Said to be distinctly different from opinion leaders
and early adopters, market mavens were not only believed to have a higher awareness
of general marketplace information, but also more source credibility than other word-
of-mouth influencers. Employing a replication study approach, a telephone survey of
400 households in urban, suburban and rural north Bedfordshire was undertaken. The
author found that the market maven construct was not a purely US phenomenon, but
was also present in the UK. Developing further Feick and Price's (1987) preliminary
investigations, this study confirmed that (in common with related opinion leadership
studies), it had not been possible to identify market mavens using demographic / socio-
economic variables. VAiilst classifying market mavens remained problematic, the
author was nonetheless able to confirm Feick and Price's (1987) earlier findings, that
market mavens had an inherently increased propensity for general marketplace
information gathering. As this behaviour was considered by the author to be unique to
market mavens, the construct was employed to test those factors, said to affect ethnic
food diffusion, with interesting, if largely inconclusive results.
The author concluded, that the potential of the market maven construct in the diffusion
of innovations process was significant, particularly as a conduit for internal word-of-
mouth information in the business-to-business / industrial marketing context. In that
situation, market mavens' heightened awareness of, and active search for, general
marketplace information, would make them ideal targets for the type of marketing
communication message that innovators and opinion leaders alike, reputedly ignore.
