Network Marketing - A New Permutation

I was invited to sit through a business presentation with a dear friend recently.  Much to our dismay, it was a network marketing sales pitch.

It was the usual opening gambit. A rundown of the current economic scenario, a re-jigged slide on Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant, the benefits of working for yourself...blah, blah, blah.

We just stopped the poor guy mid-sentence and told him that network marketing was not for us. To his credit, he persisted in trying to convince us of the errors of our ways (which were for naught, as we remained unconvinced).


It was just another example of how desperate (in our views, anyway) some people are to get people to sign up as downliners.  Pretty much anyone is the target, which just makes the whole business quite unsavoury for my liking.

What I've just described is a typical network marketing scenario. But of late, I've come to realise that network marketing has evolved into other areas as well.

Affiliate marketing is actually network marketing. You have a website, it's set up with ad banners of affiliate marketing businesses that you're a part of. A visitor to your website clicks on the banner, likes the offering, makes a purchase, and you get a percentage of the sales.

Sounds like network marketing to me.

But there is another form of what I think is network marketing. I have heard of many friends in ad agencies (particularly digital) who are coerced or the politically-correct term, "encouraged" to advertise a client's offering via their social network.  Be it a game application or filling in a short survey or invites to a roadshow event, many ad people are "encouraged" to post such news on, say their Facebook walls, in order to drive up the necessary number of participants.

I never liked this nor will I ever like it. I do not like to impose this on others nor do I like it being imposed on me. And the worse part is that one does not get paid for putting up these ad messages on their Facebook walls. So unfair.

Some may argue to say that these 'messages' that they're putting up are actually useful to their network. Hey, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. You have yours and I have mine.

I disagree to the notion that ad people are expected to post such 'messages' on their walls in aid of their clients. Sure, I have KPIs to be met but do I really need to involve my friends in meeting these targets?  I am totally affronted by this. Yet another may argue that no ad person is 'expected' to do whatever. Okay, I agree but I would counter that by saying, 'If that's so, then how could one even suggest such a tasteless thing?'. Coz' it has been suggested to me. Numerous times.

I'd like to think that Social Media is a very organic thing. The day that every single one of us is being made to put up these ad messages, is the day that Social Media failed.

Harsh words, I know. But honestly, when you meet a friend for a drink, are you gonna whip out a sales brochure to sell him stuff? I don't think so. Coz' if you do that, you are no friend but a scheming salesperson out to make a buck off your friend.

And here's another gripe. If one is so desperate to drive up numbers for their surveys, game applications, roadshow events et al, and the numbers are not encouraging, maybe the question to ask is not just 'How do I fix this?' but also, 'Would people really dig this?'.

Here it is one more time, marketing folks.  For goodness' sake, do you really need to jump on the bandwagon just coz' everyone is on it?