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NONE: Advertising and MLMs
Advertising and MLMs
Steve Harrison (sharrisn_at_cencom.net)
Mon, 8 Jul 1996 09:40:35 -0500
The previous (and hopefully dead by now) thread regarding junk e-mail
stirred much emotion and even some pretty good head-scratching. One of the
bits of collateral subject that was kicked into the air regarded MLMs.
With the hope this post doesn't start another ramble on barely topical
stuff, I'd offer that I was surprised to see such a consensus among
participants, and perhaps the moderator, that MLM is a scam. [Note from
moderator: I don't believe I have expressed any opinion to this list
regarding MLMs. --Cliff] At least with
the wording of what I was seeing in the digests, the idea seemed to be that
*all* MLMs are based on a "can't work" myth. I am left to wonder if what
I'm actually reading is nothing more than professional jealousy between
advertising folks and the folks who don't spend a lot of money advertising
their product (MLMers). Of course, some - maybe even many or most - MLMs
have a pretty shaky product to market. But, aren't we traditional and
online advertising pros perfectly willing to represent and try to enhance
sales of a less-than-perfect product?
By its very nature, the greatest bulk of MLM advertising, online and
otherwise, seems to be for participation in their particular MLM program -
recruitment. The basic idea being that the networking of sales agents
offsets the need for the large advertising budget. Which brings me to my
point of topic. Many MLMs have some of the highest quality products
available to market, but they don't spend the big bucks advertising them
(with us). Could it be that the nature of MLM, as it has presently evolved,
is such an aggravation to advertising people that the whole concept of
networked marketing/sales gets burned as the strawman? Not the highest
caliber of cerebral output, if so.
There were even comments which tried to knit together pyramid schemes (a
true fraud) with network marketing (MLM). That is patently false, both
legally and honestly, and smacks of simple "hooray for our side" chauvinism.
If MLM is the opponent, counterpart, or even the enemy in the minds of some
advertising professionals, it would seem wise to "know thy enemy" for who
and what and how s/he is, and not by some false icon. May be time to
re-read Sun Tzu.
MLMs may never spend the dough advertising with us, but to falsely accuse
the marketing system of being a "can't possibly succeed" and borderline
fraudulent scam is to subject our own profession to the charge of spiteful
jingoism.
To answer the obvious question, I have been in and out of MLMs (presently
out - and NO, I'm not looking), made as much money as I cared to equate to
my own personal marketing efforts, and found nothing scamish about the few I
have tasted. I hope this online advertising mail list continues to evolve
into a high-quality product, and doesn't fall the way of becoming just
another tiresome clique.
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Steve Harrison - "Web Merlin" - sharrisn_at_cencom.net
Commercial Web Site Marketing, Makeovers, Editing, Copywriting
** Without Marketing They're Just Pretty [Expensive] Pictures **
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