I recently attended a "meeting" held by a Multi-Level Marketing company (an MLM). The person who had invited me had done so in order to get a "second opinion" fro me on the MLM.

An MLM is a company that signs people up to be "independent business owners" who sell the product(s) of the company, and who also sign up others to sell and sign others up. An MLMer makes money based on how many people they sign up to do the same, because they earn X dollars for every person they sign up, and for every person that person signs up, all the way down the line.

At the presentation, it was mentioned that the company was so successful because it saved money by not advertising, and by paying that money to the reps. This started me thinking. "Ad creep" (the phenomenon whereby more and more sensory space—such as visual space, radio air waves, television broadcasts, internet, etc.—is being taken up by advertising) is at a fevered pitch today, and anything which reduces ad creep will get my attention.

But the last M in MLM stands for "Marketing". So where is the marketing? It has moved from billboards and television spots to the people we know, trust, and love. That is why this new phenomenon is so effective.

Advertising is losing its power in proportion to ad creep. The more advertising takes over the world's surfaces, the more people become desensitized to it. MLMs know that, and use a new tactic. Because MLM is relatively new, it is a more effective form of advertising than the old ways; people are not used to it, and have not built up a defense against it.

But if/when people DO build up a defense, what form will that defense take? Well, in what form do we have defense against traditional advertising? Muting the TV during commercials, pointing out product placements in movies, defacing billboards, mocking ads with satire, and, most importantly, distrust. Most of us do not trust advertisements. We know that the information they give us is for the good of the speaker, not of the listener.

We can't silence because ad creep has become too extreme, so we keep our eyes and ears open and disbelieve/ignore all the billboards, commercials, etc. But what happens when the people we trust start directing advertising at us too?

The long-term result will be a painful and significant loss to society. Whatever trust remains between people (and after "September Eleventh", there isn't much) will erode and falter. People will trust each other far less, or even not at all. Relationships between people are sacred.

I do not want to mock the people who talk to me. I do not want to shut them up. I do not want to have to pick through everything they tell me, sorting the personally relevant messages from the messages intended to sell me something. My personal relationships are valuable to me because they are a peaceful space, a place to relax, to let my defenses down. MLM will result in people being forced to keep their defenses up even in personal relationships. It delegitimizes the very essence of personal relationships. It turns a relationship from a personal one into a commercial one.

As corporations get richer and average people get poorer, average people become more desperate to make a quick and easy dollar. But MLM is designed to succeed only by exploiting relationships. Apparently, large corporations can take our money from us. But we mustn't hand over the trust and respect we have for each other.