Good news, allegedly, is the supercars, ultra-expensive wristwatches and foreign trips. The catch is what is happening at the moment _ a flood of complaints, legal woes and public shame.
The iCon advertisement is a double-edged sword. While it led to stunning and quick wealth, everything about it has caught the eyes in a bad way. It also forced many involved to bite off disastrously more than they can chew.
The iCon Group’s executives must have drawn so much envy months ago, when a PR blitz brought in numerous members-cum-customers and hence phenomenal business growth and mammoth income. On Wednesday, jealousy turned into sighs of relief.
Most of the executives were arrested due largely to the same promotional campaign which the authorities say was intended to defraud the public. Bail requests have been denied. Media “exposures” are continuing.
The moral of the iCon story is that no business can grow this fast naturally. Whether they were innocent or guilty as charged, the executives were victims of their own hype.
First, let’s presume that iCon is clean. Could a company selling typical products skyrocket like that? Nearly impossible.
What did they do then? The executives resorted to a business model that, if sustainable, would have been taught or executed all over the capitalistic world. They promised, through beautiful “presenters”, hefty returns to sale forces structured together like a pyramid.
The promises of handsome dividends and commissions made the sale troops balloon a lot faster than real demands for products.
People became associated with iCon Group not because they really want to sell or buy the items it sold, but because they believed in the you-can-get-rich-quickly narrative.
Whereas those at the top thrived on money from new membership, those down the line struggled more and more, yet they were told to work harder. They did so dutifully, still having full trust in the pretty and “credible” faces riding in luxury cars at the company.
When those down the line had no choice but “pass the buck” to new “family members”, the money flow to the executives remained continuous, giving the executives an illusion that the business was doing great.
The biggest shortcoming of this model is that it’s not open-ended. When it reaches a certain point, someone somewhere in the family will not “get rich quickly” but will instead be overloaded with products that do not have genuine demands.
The unwanted situation is always bound to happen. If the iCon Group executives presumably had the best intentions, they still wouldn’t be able to cope with “fake demands” created by their own “presenters” and promises of shortcuts to big wealth.
Now, the opposite scenario. If the executives are actually guilty of fraud, the big hype has come back to bite them. Simply put, a more moderate promotion and more “humble” lifestyles of the “presenters” could have made the scheme last a lot longer.
As it turned out, ones could not look humble in this kind of scams. Schemers required a constant eye-catching promotion because there was always a demand for new members/customers. It was both a problem and a lure, because money kept coming.
The eye-catching promotion caught the eyes of disappointed members and the authorities as well. The supercars that had been used as a bait became a lightning rod. Speeches that had been inspirational have been booed at when replayed. Foreign trips stopped being new members’ aim and turned into suspicious privileges of the big bosses.
If the executives are guilty as charged, however, it won’t be the biggest absurdity. If this is a scam, the real infamy could be that many of over 1,000 “victims” have escaped becoming villains themselves.
The crackdown on iCon Group means that the base of the pyramid will stop expanding. It means that no more “iCon family members” will be added. It means those at the bottom no longer has to pass the buck.
There have been reports of suicides (which could be unrelated) and of people putting most or all their eggs in the iCon basket. There will be no more hype, though, which in the grand scheme of things is good to a lot of people.
