Visit Ciceron!

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ci-ce-ro-ne: a guide who conducts sightseers (or SITEseers)

Pronunciation: si-se-rO-nE / Etymology: Italian, 1726

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IN THIS EDITION

* Market Commentary: Andrew Eklund, CEO on "From A Potentially Fiery Wreck to Enlightenment in One Visit to the Car Dealership"
* Profiled! Kraig Larson, Founding Partner
* The Buzz: Online ad spend balloons 30%, Conversion funnels are dead, Execs debate online budget gap, Ciceron jumps in rank to #8
* Check out Ciceron's exciting Web projects in WORK BRIEFS: Client Accolades for Surdyks.com, Public Radio International, and Minneapolis.org

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MARKET COMMENTARY

From A Potentially Fiery Wreck to Enlightenment in One Visit to the Car Dealership

I'm writing this piece from my car dealership. Last week I received a notice that my car has been recalled due to a faulty fuel pump. No big deal. Just that I'm driving in a potentially EXPLOSIVE DEATH MACHINE!

While waiting for my car to be rendered safe again, I'm sitting here in the showroom along pit row for the sales team. I'm listening to each of their phone calls. (nosy damn market research guy that I am.) In half the calls, I hear some reference to the Internet. In fact the new guy -- a recent Chicago transplant -- just said, "So did the Internet tell you about our new financing options" as though Ms. Internet just sat down next to Ms. Prospect, poured her a nice cup of Starbucks, and negotiated her new sale.

Oh, wait a second! Ms. Prospect just hung up on Chicago Sales Guy! (No lie. It just happened.)

It's taking everything in my power not to jump out of my chair and yell, "Hey, Chicago-boy! You've just been punked by Ms. Self-Informed-Due-Diligence-Prospect. And you didn't know it because you were taught how to sell cars old school. You thought you were in the business of selling cars. You're not. To that self-informed prospect, you're in the business of negotiating a pre-sold deal. You're in the business of providing Ms. Prospect a few other options that may fit with her lifestyle. You're in the business of showing her how easy it is to bring your car in for routine maintenance or getting into a new car once her lease has expired.

Chicago-boy, you needed to ask Ms. Prospect a lot of questions about her lifestyle and what she values. You needed to reinforce that the car she selected online is the perfect car for her -- and I bet she just can't wait to come in and take a look at her new car."

But Chicago-boy didn't do any of those things. And I'm not his boss, so I'm going to blog about him. Sucker!

In Freakanomics, author Steven Levitt would call this situation, where the Internet flip flopped the power position, a mistaken assumption of "asymmetrical information." In the case of Chicago-boy, he made the incorrect assumption that only he had access to some very special information about the Ms. Prospect's new car that she did not. He assumed that at some point he'd have the opportunity to throw out that ethereal zinger that closes the deal. Here are the facts of the transaction: Ms. Prospect most likely utilized better information than the sales guy because she tapped into an entire realm of persuasive content that was non-branded, non-salesy, and thoroughly authentic. The content that persuaded Ms. Prospect to pick up the phone was most likely generated by a consumer like her in the form of a product review, evangelist blog