Reese Whitherspoon, the face of Avon’s new perfume

The televised Super Bowl show earlier this year had chatrooms a-twitter not just because of the football teams’ performances but because of one eyebrow-raising advertisement: it was not one of the usual pizza and beer spots but a pitch from Avon Cosmetics intended to recruit new representatives.

There are over 5m Avon representatives worldwide. Sales are up 10 per cent to $10bn (£6.1bn), pre-tax profits for 2008 were $875m and recruitment is soaring.