The March of Marketing Folly proceeds apace – with a little treat from “Mismanagement Today”

Is there any area of human endeavour which gives sanctuary to more fools than marketing? Take this, for instance

The March of Folly is a superb book by historian Barbara Tuchman.

It deals with failure, mismanagement and delusion in government through the ages.

I guess it is disproportionate to adapt her title when talking about something as trivial as marketing, but what the hell.

Anybody with a scintilla of sense knows the truck in the picture is not “driven by pride and passion”. It is probably driven by a large man with tattoos, a considerable gut, far too many miles to cover and a very reasonable desire to kick the tosser who stuck that sign on his truck right in the balls.

I guess some 25 year-old “creative” twat came up with that wheeze and some 35 year old management moron thought it was a good idea. It is actually what one of my eloquent partners calls Dogwank.

But no matter where you turn in the myopic world of marketing you will find incompetence writ large in glowing technicolor. And if we add a dash of what is laughably called management to things, well … Let my PA Kelly tell you about that:

Every fortnight, almost without fail, for the year I’ve been working for you, “Management Today” has called me and said  “Can I speak to a manager please?”

I then tell them I’m in charge and ask them what I can help them with.

Nearly every fortnight. 

For the last year. 

I swear on my life.

They have said:

“Yes, we need to update your information in our records so that you continue to receive free copies of our magazine.”

So I give them my information and yours, and they say thank you and hang up.

Obviously after a few months of this I started to get concerned and every time they rang I told them I’d spoken to someone two weeks ago and given them this information.

Then it got really bizarre.

The week before last they asked for Chloe (despite what must be me telling them she’s gone 15 times).

Then last week they asked for Carol, and I just spoke to them again and the man asked for Marta!

(Note: Chloe and Carol left with sighs of relief 15 months ago; Marta left three and half years ago. They are all feeling much better, naturally)

So I started laughing and told the guy that this was unbelievable, how could they possibly be “updating our information” so he then said:

“Oh I’ll make a note here that you no longer want to receive the magazine” – and I told him that’s not what I wanted.

But we’ve never received their damn magazine in the first place because they can’t even get our current employees right, let alone our address.

To add insult to incompetence, he hung up on me mid sentence.

It’s a small world, friends. Years ago Management Today were clients of mine.

The magazine is excellent. But the marketing and management are clearly not. It wouldn’t surprise me for a second if some rogues are charging them for all these redundant calls.