By Oleksandr Honcharov, CEO at FlawlessMLM
Direct Selling News reported on August 18 that 68% of consumers feel nostalgic for pre-digital marketing. A third now plan to actively choose offline brand experiences over the coming year, according to Neora Co-Founder Amber Olson Rourke's new analysis for DSN. For MLM companies, the finding challenges years of all-digital growth strategy and puts new pressure on how distributor platforms are built.
What Happened
Olson Rourke published the piece in DSN's July/August/September 2026 issue. She has led Neora's field strategy since co-founding the company in 2011.
Her core argument is not that digital marketing failed. It is that companies used it to replace human interaction instead of feeding it. "Success will not be measured in the amount of content produced," she wrote.
The responsibility for closing that gap, she argues, now sits with human interaction: real conversation and a sense of community. Companies already shifting budget toward in-person events and one-on-one outreach are the ones responding fastest.
Why This Matters for the MLM Industry
The finding lands as many network marketing platforms have leaned almost entirely on social selling software and automated outreach to reach new customers. Olson Rourke's data suggests that approach alone is losing ground with buyers who say they want fewer screens and more real interaction.
According to Direct Selling News, 68% of consumers report feeling nostalgic for pre-digital experiences, and one in three plan to choose offline brand interactions in the next year. (Direct Selling News, August 2026)
This is not a call to abandon digital tools. It is a signal that the tools built for volume need a second layer built for judgment. That layer should know when a lead is ready for a real conversation instead of another automated touch.
What This Means for MLM Platforms: FlawlessMLM's Take
Across 400+ projects, we consistently see MLM companies pour their software budget into digital touchpoints and skip the connective tissue between them. A modern MLM platform should not just automate outreach. It should tell a distributor exactly when a lead is ready to move from a screen to a phone call.
Replicated websites and autoship exist to run without a distributor lifting a finger, which is exactly the gap this data points to. Automation should free up a distributor's time for the conversations that actually convert, not replace them.
We recommend pairing back office analytics with simple handoff triggers. When a lead engages three or more times online, the CRM should prompt a phone call instead of another automated message. FlawlessMLM's software team builds this kind of behavior-based handoff into the back office of every platform we deliver.
Oleksandr Honcharov, CEO at FlawlessMLM, put it plainly: "MLM companies that treat their software as an autopilot are going to lose the very connection their distributors are built to create."
If your platform still funnels every lead through the same digital sequence regardless of how they engage, that gap is worth a second look. Our team can map where automation is costing you real human connection. Write to our MLM consultants for a 30-minute consultation.
It found that 68% of consumers feel nostalgic for pre-digital marketing experiences, and one in three plan to choose offline brand interactions over the next year. The analysis came from Neora Co-Founder Amber Olson Rourke in DSN's August 2026 issue.
No. The finding argues for pairing digital outreach with real human follow-up, not replacing one with the other. Digital still works well for sparking initial interest.
A back office or CRM built with handoff triggers can flag when a lead is ready to move from automated messages to a real conversation. That keeps automation useful without letting it replace the human side of the business.