In Your Face: How American Marketing Excess Fuels Anti-Americanism

Chapter 2. The Anti-Marketing Case

Less is more

The contents of a weekly magazine are perhaps not the most accurate indicator of what a nation is concerned about. But in its issue for the week of April 28, 2003, just as the war in Iraq was coming to an end, Time magazine featured a three-page article on telemarketing entitled “Stop Calling Us” (the Iraq coverage netted 12 pages, plus photos).^[1] The article stated that telemarketing calls had been growing from 18 million in 1991 to a projected 104 million in 2003. No wonder I felt attacked. And I was apparently not alone in trying to stem the tide—the writers detailed a number of new devices designed to thwart the offenders. In addition to the TeleZapper I received as a gift, there is the Phone ...