We highly recommend an even-handed series the Salt Lake Tribune published on the subject of multilevel marketing in Utah. (Link appears at bottom of post.) The series includes comments from MLM enthusiasts, the Direct Selling Association, attorneys for well-known MLM companies, MLM critics and the FTC.
Meanwhile, the series shows that MLM has some political clout, and points out that Utah has more MLM firms per capita than any other place in the United States. It also publishes data supplied by a number of companies.
The series is accessible through a “State of the Debate” Blog entry by George Pyle, a longtime journalist who was a finalist in 1998 for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing. Don’t miss the cartoon that accompanies Pyle’s presentation of the links to the stories. The cartoon pokes fun at the ready supply of over-the-top MLM sales pitches.
Pyle’s Blog entry does not hold forth on the subject of MLM; it simply introduces the series. Readers can draw their own conclusions after clicking on the links and reading the stories
The series consists of articles by Tribune reporters Steven Oberbeck, Matt Canham, Tom Harvey and Kirsten Stewart.
MLM Fans (Again) Demonstrate Lack Of PR Savvy
As often is the case when media outlets tackle the subject of MLM, the post-publication opinions of the Tribune’s readers were strongly divided. MLM perhaps always will be a “scam” to one side in the long-running debate — and a marvelous thing to the other. One of the best things about the series is the comments submitted by readers. The PP Blog believes the comments submitted by MLM enthusiasts are the most instructive.
Although the PP Blog publishes relatively few stories about MLM, the ones it has published have been met with organized (and bizarre) resistance. After publishing a series of stories on the MPB Today “grocery” MLM last summer and fall, supporters of the firm arrived on the Blog to call MPB Today’s critics “roaches,” “IDIOTS,” “clowns,” “terrible” people, “misleading” people, people who have led a “sheltered life,” people who have been “chained up in a basement,” people who have “chips” on their shoulders, spewers of “hot air,” “naysayers,” “complainers,” “trouble maker[s]” and “crybabies.” (See this editorial.)
They were doing this on behalf of a business that had any number of reps who apparently licensed themselves to film commercials inside Walmart stores and to use Walmart’s intellectual property to drive dollars to MPB Today. At least two reps declared it best to do business with them because other MPB Today affiliates were lying scammers. Meanwhile, another MPB rep sought to drive business to the firm by creating a script that depicted President Obama and Michelle Obama as welfare recipients aspiring to eat dog food. The President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were cast as Nazis, with Obama subordinate to Clinton, who also was cast as a drunk.
One thing that continues to drive criticism of MLM is the bizarre behavior of some of its supporters. This behavior can be described fairly as cult-like, Stepfordian, incongruous, supremely awkward and monumentally ham-handed. It is utterly predictable, and the lack of PR savvy contributes to the industry’s poor reputation.
In response to Oberbeck’s story, which referenced the disclosure statements of a number of well-known companies and reported that “nearly all” distributors “will fail,” one reader surmised in a Comments thread that the Tribune reporter was “broke” and driven by “negativity.” It was a familiar refrain.
Naturally the comment precluded the possibility that the reporter had any pure motives such as enlightening the Tribune’s readership about some of the realities of MLM. How the industry ever could hope to elevate the debate by attacking the messenger — in this case, Oberbeck — is left to the imagination.
What happened at the Tribune, however, is hardly unique.
After the U.S. Secret Service seized tens of millions of dollars in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi MLM case in 2008, some ASD affiliates advanced theories that the agency’s work was the work of “Satan” and that a Florida television station should be charged with Deceptive Trade Practices for carrying news unflattering to the company. They later complained that reporters seemed disinclined to put much stock in their point of view.
Prosecutors said ASD created as many as 40,000 victims while gathering at least $110 million in a classic Ponzi scheme put together by Andy Bowdoin, a recidivist felon. Rather than distancing themselves from Bowdoin, some ASD members reportedly sent him brownies and delicious baked goods. Others signed a petition calling for the prosecutors to be investigated. Still others advanced a theory that the U.S. Secret Service was guilty of interference with commerce. The key prong of the theory was that all commerce is legal as long as both parties to a contract agree it is legal, a position that would legalize (and legitimize) Ponzi schemes, slavery, human trafficking and narcotics trafficking, among other crimes.
Len Clements Lectures Tribune Reporter
Well-known MLM aficionado Len Clements, who advertises his IQ of 155, apparently believed that Oberbeck’s story in the Tribune deserved a response in the form of a five-page “open Response Letter.”
Clements noted in his “open Response Letter” to Oberbeck that he assumed the reporter had been “duped” by MLM critics Robert FitzPatrick and Jon Taylor — and Tracy Coenen before them.
In his “open Response Letter,” Clements accused Fitzpatrick, Taylor and Coenen, a forensic accountant, of being “anti-MLM antagonists” who were “slathering” the profession with misplaced criticism.
“Slathering” is a good and powerful word. It doesn’t describe the efforts of FitzPatrick, Taylor and Coenen to educate the public about the perils of endless-chain recruiting schemes, but it’s a good word nonetheless. We’re glad that Clements, who advertises his IQ of 155, used it; it gives us a chance to use the word “unctuous.”
Indeed, we view Clements’ “open Response Letter” as “unctuous.” It begins with a doozy of a misplaced modifier, but that’s only worth a brief mention — and only because Clements advertises his IQ of 155. Plenty of people with high IQs don’t have command of grammar, which likely bores them to tears.
The reason we’re using the word “unctuous” to describe Clements’ “open Response Letter” is that it practically drips with stinking, vomitous verbal slime. It’s the sort of passive-aggressive letter in which the insult is deeply embedded in the vomit of the opening lines, with the vomit theoretically neutralized later with softer words that are supposed to demonstrate Clements’ sincere desire to be helpful.
Any “professional journalist” should be interested in “accurately, fairly and responsibly” presenting the topics they write about, Clements unctuously points out at the top of the letter, setting himself up as a journalism cop. After implying that Oberbeck isn’t a pro and hasn’t done his homework, Clements goes on to trash the story and the MLM-unfriendly sources used in the story.
The roadmap to professional reporting about MLM as provided by Clements in his “open Response Letter” includes at least 10 footnotes. It was submitted to the newspaper in the form of a link to a PDF that contains multiple link’s to Clements’ website. The document is unctuously titled “OberbeckResponse” and asserts that Oberbeck’s reporting “seem[s] to betray any objective research and analysis of the subject.”
Clements, who started out by lecturing Oberbeck on what constitutes professional journalism, eventually positions himself as the sincere cure for what purportedly had dragged down the quality of the reporter’s work.
“Should you ever need assistance in researching any topic related to the field of multilevel marketing I sincerely hope you will contact me,” Clements un-vomits to Oberbeck at the conclusion of the “open Response Letter,” after earlier coming out of the gate with embedded slime, a lecture on professionalism and an attack on sources used by the reporter as “remarkably ignorant” people and the purveyors of “flimflam.”
At least Clements didn’t summon his advertised IQ of 155 to call them “roaches” or to declare that Oberbeck was “broke.” He merely relied on his unctuousness. In doing so, he demonstrated once again that MLM often is its own worst enemy.
A five-page, de facto letter to the editor — one filled with slime reimagined as a sincere effort to be helpful and 10 footnotes? This is supposed to beneficial to the trade?
Little wonder that MLM finds itself the topic of constant criticism.
Access the Tribune’s MLM series at this gateway page.
