Assignment 14

The most interesting thing I learned this semester was about WOM. The reason for this is that I
am very concerned about the fact that in the advertising business in recent years, the
effectiveness of advertising using social networking sites has been growing every year, and that
advertising using influencers is generating tremendous profits. It is a well-known fact, and we
have learned it many times in this course, that in this day and age when the Internet has
penetrated all over Japan, advertising on social networking sites has a greater effect than
advertising on TV, magazines, or radio. I feel this again and again when I use SNS myself on a
daily basis. If a famous youtuber introduces a restaurant, it immediately becomes popular and
people of the younger generation visit the restaurant in droves and post on Instagram. However,
the popularity does not last long, and the restaurant disappears and a new one appears. This
trend existed before social networking became popular, but the advent of social networking has
accelerated its speed. For today's young people, who can easily peek into other people's lives
and constantly compare themselves with someone else, what their admirers have to say is very
important. They feel that if a person says something is good, they feel it is good without
thinking about it, probably because they think that the person is great just from the pictures on
Instagram. Word of mouth has been a big part of business in every era, but I think social
networking has turned that role into something too big.