It is said that that truth is the first casualty of war and most certainly it is also true of Marketing and Advertising.  Read the examples here to discover how deep mediocrity and dishonesty is embedded within the ranks of Top-down-Management.

£20m spent on TV adverts rather than police

The Home Office has admitted spending tens of millions of pounds of TV advertising in the past five years, following a -scandal about "secretly funded" documentaries.

The Tories said the money should have been spent on getting more police on the streets.

Home Office minister Phil Woolas admitted that £20.3 million was spent on TV advertising over the past five years, excluding fees, VAT and production costs. In the most recent year available - 2007-08 - ministers spent £2.24 million on TV adverts, or more than £6,000 a day. However, this was half the amount spent five years earlier.

To say that both Government and the opposition know nothing about the process of communication is to say the least.  When the Government run Department of Information qualifies the success of its advertising campaigns they usually quote the millions of impact the campaign has received, now we all know that these figures are based upon the highly suspect BARB research

Woolas said: "We always look for the most cost-effective way to deliver our messages and this has resulted in the reduction of our expenditure on television advertising over the past five years."

Earlier this year it emerged that Government departments had spent almost £2 million funding television programs that were all but indistinguishable from ordinary documentaries.  And still there is no accountability available to guarantee that any of this advertising expenditure is working.

Lost in Transmission

ITV let down viewers with its FA Cup coverage. Should it let them down more? What a finish! Did you see Everton's last-minute goal in extra time on Wednesday night, the one that knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup? You didn't? Weren't you at the match? Oh, you were watching on ITV. That would explain it, And ITV viewers? They got to see, instead, a commercial for breath mints. They returned to the live game to see the Everton team inexplicably writhing in a heap, as if they were racing to locate a colleague's lost con­tact lens before the referee blew the final whistle.

The best you can say for this blip is this: why wasn't ITV also granted the broadcasting rights to all those events when we'd have been grateful to have been spared live coverage and shown an ad instead?  Like Kate Winslet accepting her Golden Globes as if she were simultaneously in the final stages of childbirth. Or Sarah Palin winking during her debate with Joe Biden.

 Where is ITV when we truly need it?   Busily ripping off the people calling in on telephone scams?

The US motor industry continues to live in its own world.

 Some believe that only radical restructuring will save some of the US car industry.   Perhaps it could be saved if only they would fire all those highly paid Marketing & Advertising people, who, together with their overpaid consultants are, to a large extent, responsible for the mess they are in right now!

 What is the point of teaching them a lesson? Projections of job losses vary, but are in the millions. The Big Three have warned that three million jobs could go. The collapse of the entire motor industry is also an unattractive prospect for an incoming president. President-elect Obama could have-an opportunity not to say "bailout", but instead "restructuring" together with a loan of money that requires substantial changes at the companies. Including change among some senior managers. The loans could require high interest payments, netting the Government a decent return but it would have to be confident that the companies could repay them. They do not look in shape to do so right now!

Without a doubt the Marketing and Advertising “Experts” have made major contributions in the downfall of the Western form of Capitalism exemplified by the wondrous examples given here. But there are more, and will continue to be so whilst Top-down-Management are given free rein to promote their unproven and unaccountable marketing and advertising theories!