Intrusive Promotion as Market Failure: How Should Society Impact Marketing?

If society’s wishes were speedily and thoroughly carried out by marketers, certain marketing practices would have been sharply reduced, if not eliminated, by now. Practices such as telemarketing and e-mail spam are obvious examples. What is equally obvious is that marketers who engage in such practices have consistently and willfully ignored society’s wishes. Because most recipients are not parties to a transaction, these marketing practices constitute a negative externality in which the impacted individuals have little economic voice with which to influence marketers. This article outlines the U.S. government’s regulatory response to telemarketing annoyance, along with two alternatives that did not occur: voluntary self-regulation and property rights. The discussion section assesses several aspects of these three remediation approaches, including market proscription, legitimacy of industry resistance, problems of volunteerism, property rights, and trust.