Ciceron Blog Archives

Gone But Not Out

They're unafraid of taking Big Intellectual Concepts and making them accessible to everyone. However, this is different than the sugar-pop stuff of "Everything I Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Their writing, I think, can be equal parts intellectually stimulating while not attempting to leave you in the dust with their brilliance. As a result, I'm sure that academic economists roll their eyes at times by Levitt's conclusions. Brilliance, in the academy, often isn't meant to be accessible to the masses, only corroborated by peer review.

That's a shame. As we speak, I'm working on an article for a now-overdue Ciceron newsletter that will take the Freakanomics' position of asymmetrical information and apply it to the world of advertising and marketing. Levitt posits that "experts" are those people who perceive themselves to have access to information that the masses don't, and as a result, they are able to charge clients to review that information to provide valuable and relevant insights. Information really is the value we are willing to pay for. But what if the information is no longer controlled by the expert class of professionals but dispensed equitably among all of us through the Internet?

This will be the thesis of the article: the field of advertising and marketing continues to believe it is a black box art form where information about consumer behaviors, performance of campaigns, and the strength of brands are beholden only to professionals. I will argue that the information we once "owned" as a field has been unleashed...and that, for our clients and for us as professionals, is a very, very good thing.

Stay tuned.