Moving Forward, Looking Back

Abstract

In December 2006, the Chivas of Guadalajara won their first national title in the Mexican professional soccer league in a decade. To celebrate the victory, Jorge Vergara purchased half an hour of prime time television on a domestic broadcast channel the day before Christmas Eve. The program opened with scenes of crowds cheering at an Omnilife rally and then cut to interviews with individual distributors. The smiling subjects carried bottles of colored water and spoke directly into the camera. A woman exclaimed, “I began to realize my value. I have all the capacity. I am a great woman.” A man said, “I can discover the abundance in my life.” Another woman, near tears, added, “No one will give you this capacity to dream again.” Lights went up on a studio. Jorge Vergara appeared in a dark suit holding a bottle of orange-hued beverage and leaning against a stool to reveal sockless ankles. The camera panned to a display of company products arrayed on a table behind him and a large soccer trophy on the floor next to it.