The road shows aren't the half of it. Did you see the letter mentioned on that page and linked to? here
Its these kinds of tactics of getting women to doubt themselves that are so underhand. "How's the feeding going? If you?re breastfeeding, do you sometimes wonder if your baby is getting enough milk?" surrounded by the SMA formula logo and a picture of the infant pack.
Breastmilk Substitute manufacturers want to advertise because it increases the market for their product. That is also why they run baby clubs, have give aways, have 'feeding support' lines and run roadshows. They want more money and their main competition is a superior, free product. But if they can get women to believe that breastfeeding is just a bonus, or that its so difficult and frustrating then they cause women to doubt the importance of breastmilk and their ability to produce it. The advertising of 'follow on' milks gives women the impression that they should move on from breastfeeding at 6 months/a year.
I do agree that for women who are unable to breastfeed or who choose not to do so, there should be unbiased advice on the composition of different formulas and the safest way to prepare them and how to mix feed. But allowing advertising of infant breastmilk substitutes will not provide that unbiased information, neither will roadshows.
The difficulty with expecting the nhs to be the unbiased experts on formula feeding (and they do give advice on preparation as people have linked to but that has been ignored in the search for detailed information on mix feeding) is that it these are commercial products and they refer to the manufacturer's instructions. Manufacturers don't have detailed information on mix feeding partly because they don't want women to do it successfully and partly because it is difficult to give detailed advice about mix feeding - as has been mentioned above, they cannot guarantee that it won't cause an end to breastfeeding, so they can't say 'feed this much and you will still be able to do both' because women accepting that might rightly be annoyed if they then lost the ability to breastfeed (as they wanted to do both).
If you want to understand more about substitute milks and how they are marketed, and why breastfeeding advocates wish to prevent the advertising of milks, I highly recommend 'The Politics of Breastfeeding - Why Breasts are Bad for Business'.
Its interesting that the experience of some women appears to be that they get no support to FF/mix feed, whilst others find they are advised to formula feed wholely or partly at the smallest problem often for very contradictory reasons (your baby isn't putting on enough weight, use formula. Your baby is putting on too much weight, use formula).
I think there is an argument for a non-commercial, evidence based, health focused, unadvertised and free milk substitute for women unable or unwilling to exclusively breastfeed. But it might be difficult to find a way of doing that without undermining breastfeeding further. But at least companies wouldn't be profiteering out of a woman just because she couldn't lactate, and there would be no incentive to push it onto women who are temporarly finding breastfeeding difficult. It would be there if she needed it but breastfeeding support would still be the priority.
I'm rambling a bit because its a difficult issue that I'm not totally sure of the best solution to. But I don't think that the answer to making sure that parents can formula feed safely is to give the companies free reign to push their products. I get that people feel angry if they didn't get the information they felt they needed to mix feed successfully but I don't think that recieving 'advice' from a biased party that wants to sell formula and therefore would benefit from women giving up BF is how they will get the information they need.