Recently, Consumer Generated Media (CGM) such as SNS has been as popular as mass media in Japan. On the one hand mass media contact gets less, but on the other hand, the whole media contact and internet media contact gets more. Besides, trends generated by consumers’ interaction by CGM have also occurred actually. So, for companies, it is crucial how they approach consumers directly. Additionally, Companies are also anxious to grasp the trends generated by consumers’ interaction. I thought feasibility of companies’ efficient resource allocation depends on whether companies can grasp insight generated by interaction. From the mentioned above, in the past, I set the theme into the following topic: “Features of consumers compensating consumers’ insight and predicting which product can be well-seller”. I named consumers with such features “Antennaors”, and verified their information processing by covariance structure analysis. From the result of verification, as their common feature, I found that the “Antennaors” transmit information which they search actively after they manage – understanding, comprehending, and appreciating – information. Actually, there are NO studies classifying consumers with ability to predict what item can be well-seller so far. Thus, this “Antennaors” inquiry was considered to be a full of suggestion that it can focus on how one predict well-sellers and process information. But, this study only suggested how ONE consumer process and transmit information. In other words, it can’t make a reference how OTHER consumers contact with the information. In view of diversification of consumers’ information processing, and difficulty to grasp information processing only with one-way decision making models (e.g. Howard-Sheth Model), I need to refer to not only one’s transmitting but other’s touching information. Considering timing of adoption, “Antennaors” are similar to “Innovative Consumers”. And the inquiry of them is organized as studies about features of “Innovators”, “Opinion Leaders”, “Influencers”, and so on. But on the other hand, the existent study of imitator is very few. And furthermore, main topics of most studies of imitator are prediction of market scale or sales such as “Bass Diffusion Model (Bass [1969])”. Bass’s Model presents simulation of diffusions of new products (especially durables), and formulates the installed base fraction as the sum of two effects: “Innovation” and “Imitation”. According to Bass, “Innovation” effects mean external influence or advertising effect, and “Imitation” effects mean internal influence or WOM effect. In short, it is sometimes said that Imitators’ interactions are uncontrollable for companies. I thought if features of imitators companies can approach directly are discovered, companies can grasp the flow of information more easily, and allocate resources more efficiently than ever. Thus, I attempt to grasp features of them by verifying mass media’s effect on imitators with regression analysis. And moreover, this knowledge can contribute to research about relationship among companies, “Antennaors”, and imitators in view of information.

• Masanori Sueno(Keio University)