Now Marketing/Advertising people are either trying to kill us or worry us to death!

Royal Bank of Scotland, The bank bailed out with £20 billion of taxpayers’ money faces fresh fury after agreeing to spend up to £800,000 on lavish hospitality for executives at Wimbledon.

RBS staff are enjoying the perks of a new three-year deal under which they have the run of luxury ‘Suite H’ attached to the famous Court One.

They are able to dine on gourmet food and drink at a free bar offering champagne before watching matches played on the Championship’s second show court.

RBS, which was taken to the brink of collapse by former boss Sir Fred Goodwin, was saved by a Treasury bailout in 2008 that left it 70 per cent state-owned.

Taxpayers are also guaranteeing more than £325 billion in toxic assets and last year the bank promised to cut its corporate hospitality in a bid to ‘get its house in order’.

During this year’s tournament, it is understood that bankers and their clients have been enjoying a ‘summer luncheon buffet’, which includes Shetland Isles salmon, sweet chilli prawns and crayfish, asparagus and Parma ham.

Tea and coffee, a free bar, pass to Court One and a Wimbledon programme are also offered.

A source at RBS said that up to 42 people a day would use the suite, which is not open to the public.

Corporate hospitality at Wimbledon is regarded as being expensive in relation to other UK events and it is understood that bookings with the All England Club have been down in recent years.

RBS – which axed 15,000 jobs following the taxpayer bailout – also continues to sponsor Britain’s No 1 player, Andy Murray, and the bank backed the British Open Golf Championship at Turnberry last summer.

But news of the lavish hospitality at Wimbledon – costing RBS about £20,000 a day – was met with disbelief last night.

A RBS spokesman said: ‘We thought hard before we renewed this contract in the light of our position and the substantial cuts we have made to our hospitality budgets. However, we are still a bank with customers to talk to and events such as this provides the opportunity for us to spend time with key clients.’

Now here's another little gem attesting to the superiority of the British Middle Management class,

The Problem with Advertising Agencies

It is a shame that the Marketing Director of Kellogg s appears to be protecting advertising agencies for this is a moment of fundamental assessment of what advertising agencies should or should not do.

Certainly redefining advertising is the right thing to do however it is not going to be easy.

After more than fifty years of advertising, Advertising Agencies have accumulated yet another ill-designed feature, poorly co-ordinated with the rest.

Advertising should emerge from any reassessment with a policy and design on clear principles. Does advertising continue to serve a public interest? Does advertising have a legitimate role at all? Could it be made more efficient?

To retain consent for their advertising programmes agencies are going to have to do more than create advertising, they are going to have to be totally accountable and show a complete understanding of the word “communication”!

The Great Depression

changed the spending habits of a generation and the current recession has left consumers reaching beyond the attractions of luxury searching for value-driven purchases. All this has been great for mass and value driven purchases, however many premium brands are feeling great pain!

Companies must create opportunities to connect with customers on a personal level. This will afford you insights into their perspectives, motivations and needs.

It can be said that innovation is the hallmark of a premium brand. Constant development and improvement distinguishes market leaders from their competitors.

The problem is...as ever...advertising! Generally speaking the non performance of advertising is an indictment of the entire advertising industry, with its failure to communicate...to anybody!

But achieving nothing has not come cheap, total advertising expenditure in the UK passed £19 billion in 2006. At a time of public austerity, this looks like a clinching case for a thorough re-examination of the entire way we market to customers.

From the early years advertising was beset with confusion, who does not remember “50% of my advertising is wasted...”

Nowadays there is an increasing body of evidence that large advertising campaigns do not work.

Advertising together with Marketing are battling many countervailing forces, on-line;digital; clutter (or meaningless noise); selective perception together with many more.

It may not be that it is a waste of time. It just maybe that it is tougher than expected and more expensive than we can afford. Advertising now has to target resources more effectively and, at the same time, obtain a better understanding of the word “communication”!

Product features, narrow product benefits, together with proprietary claims are no longer enough to sway consumers who are much more value driven. They have taken control back from marketers and will only engage with brands on their terms. Consumers have been reluctant to spend beyond a tightly defined set of needs that has become increasingly narrower as the economy continues to stagnate.

Without a doubt the biggest challenge to National Brands is Private Label Store Brands, consumers see less difference between the quality of store brands and well-regarded name brands, thus there is less incentive to pay the premium that name brands carry. Now with Interactive Communication your brands can fight parity by putting relevance first as a means of differentiating themselves.

Marketing professionals tend to prescribe remedies that lie within their own competence.  Marketing is about perception not substance and is essentially short term, aiming to turn perceptions around within at most a couple of years, and uninterested in the problems that perception unmatched by substance may finally bring.

It is therefore not surprising that the communications industry has majored on inspiration, passion and novelty for they are the cocaine of image making delivering a sharp, optimistic and immediate kick.

Advertising has failed for three reasons:

There are three problems with advertising in any form, whether broadcast or online:

    * Consumers do not trust advertising. Dan Ariely has demonstrated that messages

This Marketing Crisis is an Opportunity to Call Advertising to Account

By Paul Ashby

Are we at all surprised that the current advertising crisis has come this far? Let's be honest: the warning voices have been around for a long time, the fact that these warnings were consistently ignored has now brought about the near collapse of the system.

We live in a schizophrenic world and we will be held accountable for our sins. The reasons why the writing on the wall was ignored has to do with the denying of inconvenient truths and also because nobody