The agency has deliberately avoided focusing on early adopters, seeing a major difference between the small number of people who embrace a new technology quickly and the first mainstream users who may or may not choose to take it on as well.

Sparkler is producing quarterly themed reports for a syndicate of media owners, based on ethnographic work with a panel of 20 households, an online community and online quantitative surveys.

Founding partner Magnus Willis told Research the service grew out of a piece of work for Ofcom during which Sparkler realised that the ‘adoption curve’ typically used to understand tech usage behaviour was simplistic.

“There’s a chasm between the early adopters who make up about 13% and the advanced mainstream who make up about 35%,” said Willis. “That, in our thinking, was an interesting group to look at. They’re a significant audience in their own right. People are always fascinated by the new, but if you’re a mass market brand, spending the whole of your time looking at early adopters can give you a bum steer.”