Case Study in Mobile Internet Innovation: Does Advertising or Acquaintances Communication Decide Taiwan's Mobile Internet Diffusion?

Reporting the world's highest mobile phone penetration rate in 2002, Taiwan's experience in promoting mobile phone has offered global scholars a successful example in innovation marketing. Its current mobile Internet status is therefore received great attentions from international practitioners and researchers. However, despite various marketing efforts, Taiwan's mobile Internet services' diffusion is surprisingly slower than that of Korea and Japan. Aiming to provide some insights of innovation marketing, three diffusion models, i.e. external, internal, and mixed influence models, were applied in this study so as to reveal whether diffusion of mobile Internet services in Taiwan is affected by mass media advertising, interactions and imitations among acquaintances, or a combination of both. Findings indicated that the mixed influence model is the best fit, but acquaintance's influence is the dominant factor. The authors therefore argue that managers should consider "source-strategy fit", i.e. it is essential to understand the innovation product's features and its influential sources when developing adequate marketing strategies