"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.