GRUBBING ALONG TOGETHER 
Those who are happy to pay a lot of money to hire a push-bike in London but less happy to ride around on it promoting one of the UK’s deservedly most criticised banks will be …

KICKS NEEDED FOR BIG SIX 
The rubbish customer service of the Big Six energy companies has recently been highlighted in the press. …

ANOTHER ONE FOR BOOT HILL 
The American actor who appeared as the rugged Marlboro smoking cowboy in the cigarette company’s advertising in the 70’s and 80’s has died of lung disease at the age…

PLAYING THE SYSTEM 
Marketeers in America are having to cope with increasingly stupid decisions by the courts there, we hear from reader Steve in Sarasota. Examples of stupidity follow. …

NICE TRY, BORIS 
The promised efforts of London’s mayor Boris Johnson to “bear down on travel costs” are having little effect, it seems. All his bearing down during his 6 year tenure has resulted…

HARRODS REMOVE BRITISH TUSCAN OIL 
Bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil labelled “Tuscan” by Harrods and sold for £12.95 for 500ml have been withdrawn from sale by the store after it emerged that the oil was bought…

HONEY TRAP 
Five out of every six jars of honey labelled “Manuka” are fake. This has been inferred from the total amount produced of 1,700 tons and the amount of 10,000 tons sold worldwide…

TAKE A CALCULATOR 
Supermarkets continue to make money from shoppers who assume that bigger packs = better value, without actually working it out. Asda have sold packs of 12 Andrex toilet…

SAVE THEM A FORTUNE 
Those marketeers looking for a very useful business gift for clients could consider the Water-to-Go bottle. This is a 75cl re-usable plastic bottle developed for NASA that …

YESTERDAY’S MEN? 
Amusing to note two books remaining unsold on the sale shelves at our local library. One is a hardly-touched hardback copy of Lord Mandy’s (Peter Mandelson’s) autobiography…

LETHAL MARKETING
If you have bought any furniture in the last few years you might want to establish whether it is fire-safe or illegally lethal, because if it came from retailers SCS, Harveys, Argos, Tesco Direct, Homebase or Amazon it could be the latter. …

WERE THEY PUSHED?
Last year’s news that our government had dropped its 2012 plans to slap a minimum price on alcohol were welcomed by those who felt it was always going to be downright daft …

BBC KEEPS FAKING IT UP
The BBC, well-known for faking wildlife scenes in its documentaries with David Attenborough, and others, is to warn viewers that parts of Hidden Kingdoms, a new…

CENTREBUS DRIVERS DISAPPOINT
One bus company CEO who needs to be concerned about the negative image of his company some, though certainly not all, of his drivers are projecting is Peter Harvey …

SOME OLD AMERICAN ADVERTISING
Thanks to reader Steve Kingshott, now in Sarasota, for emailing us “You’ll never see these again”, a collection of ads from the USA that arguably haven’t aged well. Memorable was…

FCUKED?
Sad to note that top fashion and toiletries firm French Connection UK, which trades with a hilarious and sophisticated abbreviation of its name, seemed to have some marketing …

NICE ONES BARRY
It’s always good to report when a product lives up to its marketing, and for all those pickle fans out there we can report, after extensive and pleasurable testing that Barry Norman …

BACK-END STRATEGY
The positioning of talented singer Miley Cyrus as the latest musical sex object by her marketeers is seriously ill-advised. For those who have missed some of her…

HACK ATTACK News that the low editorial standards of some sections of the press have now resulted in government regulation of the sector should surprise nor upset…

BASH THE BULLIES Those travellers who have suffered the bullying legal department of train company First Capital Connect, (FCC) a part of First Group, will be cheered to…

POLICING THE MEDIA? Meanwhile, given the reportedly cosy commercial relationship between some police officers and some chequebook journalists it was jolly interesting…

MORE O’BLARNEY Following his Ryanair airline being voted by Which? the worst of the 100 largest brands for customer service, and criticism from his own shareholders…

PAPER DRAGONS It is always perversely satisfying when marketing experts are proved wrong and the case of the top entrepreneurs on the BBC TV show Dragon’s …

HUGE FINE FOR TESCO STRAWBERRY SCAM In a landmark case Tesco have been fined £300,000, and ordered to pay costs of £65,000 after they were caught …

DERAILMENT FOR HIGH SPEED TRAINS PLAN? The all-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published a withering report on the Government’s £50 billion …

NOMOPHOBIA RULES A study by web security company AppRiver has found that despite the amount of easily-exploited and confidential business and personal …

GET ‘EM ON Another blow to the rapidly dwindling circulations of “lad’s mags” has been delivered by the Co-op, which is proud of its ethical approach to business matters and…

BET ON HARRIET Plucky and deeply principled government campaigner Harriet Harman, who has tirelessly fought the “blight” of betting shops, courageously gave…

BETTER LATTE THAN NEVER Those wanting a long life could cut back on their consumption of coffee, a new lifestyle study of 43,727 Americans has warned…

NO MORE DUCKINGS IN LIVERPOOL? A fleet of “Duckmarine” amphibious vehicles used as city tour busses has been repossessed in Liverpool after two incidents…

BANKS FACE HUGE NEW FINES Your bank charges may soon be sharply increasing if you bank with Bank of America, Barclays, Bear Stearns, BNP Paribas, Citibank…

CELEBRITY PROSTITUTION ON INCREASE A clever sting operation aimed at exposing the grubby world of celebrity endorsement for the Channel 4 Dispatches…

DROWNING IN THE SWAMP Meanwhile the ethics of some senior MPs, as well as lobbyists, have been called into question following another sting operation, this time…

HAPPY TRIGGERS A survey amongst parents and children by Colgate into what makes us smile could be of interest to marketeers.

SCOURGE FIRMS FINED Two members of a call-centre group, Swansea-based Save Britain Money have been fined a total of £225,000 by the Information Commissioners…

BAN CALLED ON CHINESE LANTERNS Following serious fires started by the floating and lit Chinese lanterns used in advertising for HSBC and Absout vodka a number of…

ONE FOR THE ROAD, AT WETHERSPOON News that pub-group J.D Wetherspoon have just secured council and police approval for a £2 million pub and restaurant at…

AND FINALLY….. The case of a shopper complaining that she was refused service at a Sainsbury’s checkout until she stopped using her mobile phone has turned into a PR…

SPANISH PRACTICES Following a fall of 22% in its British profits for the first quarter of the year, Santander, the bank that likes to say “Yes – unless we change our minds”….

TIME TO STOP THE NAFF One of the least inspiring marketing concepts around, for this old curmudgeon, is that of paid celebrity endorsement….

VILE AD PULLED Proof that some marketeers really were in a meeting when the brains were handed out comes from South Korean car maker Hyundai, which ran….

MORE SUPERMARKET DECEIT Supermarkets deliberately copy the packaging of major brands for their own-label versions, a study by consumer group Which? ….

TESCO FLOP ACROSS THE POND, AND CUT BACK HERE. Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket, have lost £1.2billion in a failed attempt to get into the American grocery….

THE DIRTY GAME Meanwhile the murky world of football has scored an own-goal with the revelation that Liverpool player Luis Suarez bites his opponents and that….

MARKETEERS – YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED Some amusing counters to the cold-callers selling over the telephone were suggested in a recent issue of the Daily….

MAX CLIFFORD INNOCENT This is the view of PR practitioner, and kiss-n-tell tabloid story specialist Max Clifford, 70, who has been charged with 11 counts of indecent….

PAYDAY LENDERS IN THE FRAME The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has warned payday lenders – legal loan sharks that charge up to 4,000 per cent APR – to clean….

ANYONE FOR GOLF? A group of multi-national TV manufacturers who ran a cartel to fix the price of cathode ray tubes across the world has been fined a record £1.19 billion by the EU….

BOYCOTT AMAZON A boycott of internet retailer Amazon for its tax avoidance has been called by the publishers of Ethical Consumer magazine….

MEN BEHAVING BADLY Actor Martin Clunes has become the second man to be dropped from the £50 million ad campaign for Churchill Insurance for motoring….

HEADING FOR A FALL? Have our train operating companies, and our Department of Transport got their long term marketing disastrously wrong?….

FOODIE TREAT Those looking for a useful business gift that lasts all year might consider copies of the Hardens independent restaurant guides….

SWEET LUXURY One luxurious new product for the ones who have everything, or who aspire to, is the sugar cane swizzle stick, crystallised South African cane sugar….

QUESTIONS OF TRUST A survey of more than 2,000 adults in Britain by consumer group Which? has indicated that politicians, journalists, bankers and estate agents….

SCREWING YOUR MARKET One large firm that seems hell-bent on gaining a damaging reputation for dishonesty in its UK market is Santander, the Spanish….

INSURANCE SCAM The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has referred a scam run by insurance companies to the Competition Commission….

SAINSBURY’S TURN THE SCREW Sainsbury’s have increased the time non-food suppliers have to wait for their money from one month to two and a half months….

MORE DODGY ETHICS Meanwhile, from the corrupt world of insurance it has been revealed by the Channel 4 Dispatches programme that Phil Hodkinson, a director….

YOU’VE WON! YOU’VE WON! “Prizes” which require substantial payments to claim, and are in fact thinly-disguised sales, have been banned by the European Court….

STILL NAFF, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. One of the more pathetically obvious marketing ploys used in direct mail surfaces from time to time and ….

DING DONG MERRILY Those for whom the upside of Christmas is to enjoy some tasty festive food and drink will be interested in the results of the Tried and Tested survey….

THE POWER OF BAD PR
Negative press can be a power for good, it seems. Olympic sponsors Visa, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, EDF, Omega, GE, Adidas, BMW, Atos and P&G were all stung by….

A FOUL FROM THE PREMIER LEAGUE
Those who feel strongly that monopolies are bad for customers, and bad for the image of marketing – and witness the shameful licensed exploitation of millions of Olympic….

ANOTHER BLOW FOR MONOPOLY
Meanwhile readers might want to shed a tear or two for the most unlucky Quatari government, which recently paid £900 million for a 20% stake in BAA, the owners….

PROFIT FROM MISERY BOAST FROM GLENCORE
One character vying with bankers Fred Goodwin and Bob Diamond for the title of most hated in the business sector is the lesser known Christopher Mahoney of very….

WHAT A LIBERTY, JIMMY!
Those Scottish readers living in Scotland and enjoying the bite, burn and budget price of cheap supermarket alcohols will be shocked to learn that their caring government….