"Marketing Company" - really?

I have just heard a report on national radio that the directors of a "marketing company" has been fined £440,000 for sending millions of spam text messages to the public. 

My view is that there is no way this company - Tetrus Telecoms - was involved in anything I would think of as marketing. The fact that they are called "telecoms" surely means they are a telecoms company, but that aside I can't see how what they did could be classed as marketing. It could almost be referred to as selling, but even then it is not selling in a professional way.

There is a place for cold calling/contacting people who could be customers, but having received a number of texts of the type these directors have been fined for sending, when there is no contact details beyond a mobile phone number I cannot see how this could be called marketing. If marketing is about creating creating competitive advantage through understanding customer requirements (or any one of the definitions of marketing) then sending unsolicited messages where people have not opted to get them cannot be marketing.

This is the sort of reference to marketing which frustrates me, it leads to a general impression that this is marketing and that all actions of marketers are similarly evil. It is a shame that those who report such stories do not understand what real marketing is and disassociate the word with this.

Details of the fine can be found here and here

As an aside, if you receive messages such as the ones sent out by this company you can forward them to your phone service provider on the number 7726 (87726 from Vodafone) and this will report the sender as spam.

The Men Who Made Us Fat

I watched the final episode of the programme "The Men Who Made Us Fat" on BBC2 last night and did get very frustrated about the continual criticism of marketing throughout it. Whilst in principle I can agree with the contention that the food industry is concerned with making money for shareholders (it is their primary responsibility, after all), I do not entirely agree that is all down to marketing that people buy the high fat foods, and as ever that is using the word marketing for promotion rather than the broader aspects it should cover.

It does seem potentially short sighted of the food companies to produce products which can cause obesity and therefore reduce the life of their customers, however. Surely they should want to help the customers to live longer and therefore make more money from them over a long period of time. But is it really the fault of marketing that people want to buy quick and simple to prepare, tasty food at low prices even if it is very processed? Isn't the marketing response one of providing that to meet the lifestyles people lead rather than convincing people it is what they need?


The problem comes with the potentially misleading labelling which suggest things may be healthy when they are not particularly so, but again, if people want to see that something has fruit in it and it does why not state that? If everything else is on the label is it not the customer's fault for not reading it and seeing the reality? I am a believer in freedom of choice provided the customer is well informed rather than the regulation which was being suggested by the programme, but that does rely on educating customers as to what things really mean and that is where I do think the food producers and retailers are failing. 


But it isn't all the fault of marketing!


For the moment the programme can be viewed here - BBC iPlayer