This paper aims to improve understanding of how innovations are diffused through combining perspectives on the adoption and consumption of innovation. The literature on the adoption of innovation mainly examines issues such as technical functionalities, utility and personality factors. In contrast, research on the consumption of innovation is concerned with the context and meaning of consumer decisions and the values that underlie them. The paper is conceptual and uses Weber’s categories of meaning in action to argue the value of combining the primarily ‘rational’ innovation adoption literature with the more ‘emotive’ consumption literature. By reference to the consumption of hybrid cars, we show how the innovation adoption literature can be valuably supplemented by an understanding of what consumers of innovation do, why they do it and what doing it means to them. We argue that this combination provides a more holistic understanding of how innovations diffuse and has implications for those delivering, using and researching innovation.