I doubt it was one person who decided, negotiated and implemented the sponsoring of this campaign. So what is your point? Does it really seem reasonable to you that no one would notice how entirely unprofitable (hypothetically) the investment is? Over the course of a dozen+ years!?
It could quite easily be one high-ranking manager who decided and pushed through such a campaign, and now uses company money to pay for research that "proves" its success and enables him to brush off those who doubt it but lack similar clout.
This kind of thing is par of the course for company politics. But probably unlikely to persist this long.
