RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Last weekend, we interviewed Mina Kimes of ESPN The Magazine about her article on AdvoCare, a multilevel marketing company. In her piece Kimes quotes dozens of former AdvoCare salespeople who were unhappy with their experience with the company. AdvoCare says the characterization of the company drawn in the piece is incorrect and requested a chance to respond.
An excerpt of their statement to NPR reads as follows. Quote, (reading) "the handful of people interviewed by ESPN, many anonymously, do not represent the almost one million customers and distributors who happily use AdvoCare products daily and proudly support our business."
It continued (reading) "direct selling is a common business model used by hundreds of private and publicly listed companies with 18 million Americans engaged in direct selling every year." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.