So this is what “an offer” looks like at Tesco?

Anyone who fancies this offer?

Yes, it was previously €8.19 but now, special price of €9.50 (with a saving of €2.19)!

Three conclusions that I can draw from this:

• Tesco thinks people can’t do simple maths the moment they see the word “Save” followed by a reasonable amount of figure (who cares if it’s incorrect and can someone tell me how to reconcile those 3 figures above?).
• Tesco’s management is dumb and can’t tell that when the price goes up, it’s no longer savings of any sort.
• Tesco has faulty and unreliable computer system which can’t calculate (they’ll probably claim this incident as computer error anyway).

And as a bonus, funny how the offer is supposed to end on 24 November 2009 but this is still sitting on the shelf and I do know of someone who paid that higher price just over the weekend. Normally, if there’s any real deal, the expiry date is strictly enforced. I should know. I’ve bought things before which when the prices didn’t show up on my receipt and I queried them, I was shown that the offers had expired and so I was not entitled to whatever special prices despite the tags still sitting on the display.

Tesco. Fail.

I would be eager to hear what any marketing execs or indeed Joe Public thinks of this logo for our fantastic new Transport21 plan:

Snazzy? Effective? It had bloody well want to be, it cost €70,000 of taxpayers money to come up with it after Noel Dempsey, Minister for Transport, snubbed the free logo that had been drawn up by the Department of Transport.

It emerged today that Noel Dempsey allocated €2 million of taxpayers money to outside consultants, PR and advertising in the first half of 2008 alone, with the majority being spent on promoting Transport21. You can read the full story here.

I may not be too savvy when it comes to the multi-layered world of PR and advertising, and I do acknowledge that a certain amount of promotion is necessary, but a €70,000 logo – funded by the target audience?? I’d love to hear from anyone who thinks that this is justifiable.