When author and entrepreneur Seth Godin coined the phrase “permission marketing” marketers saw the principle of passing control to the consumer as a brave but frightening one. Godin argued that the established models of press, TV and direct mail (”intrusion marketing”) were not working and that the web (long before 2.0 appeared) would enable consumers to choose who could have a dialogue with them.

Marketers now have an increasing range of media to use but a decreasing audience: the “permission spectrum”.