I would not categorize the way Jones family is living for personal selling because it is a way to misrepresent their life style and they are living a fake life .Jones family is using expensive products and connecting with other people making them friends in order to increase sales, which is a good strategies for sales, how ever people might buy products that are out of their budget, just to show that they are also living at the same standard as the Jones family is, this can lead to financial problems in the future and also increase debt for the families that cannot afford the products.
The similarities I see between the sales tactics and my favorite brands are that they are being referred from a friend or while hanging out with them, for example a few years back I was having a foot pain while walking, even though I tried all the different brands so what happened was I went with my friends to play basketball and over there my friend referred me to try out Nike shoes, which I did even though they were out of my budget at that time, But they did help relieve my foot pain, Brands hire people to promote them or they pay you a percentage for referring there products and that is exactly what happened with me.
I have mix point of views on weather the products being marketed are ethical or not.I think that the best marketing strategy is to show people that you are also using the same products to increase there confidence.However if the products you are marketing for are expensive and you are trying to sell it to people who cannot afford it that is unethical because they might end up buying the products by taking a loan or increasing their debt and in the future they might have problems financially.
I would feel unsafe around them because if I did get really close with them and they started inspiring me to buy the products that they are using , and I started trusting them, I would be very disappointed when I would have found out there secret, because if the people are not genuine, then there is no point of getting close to them, It just means that they are using you and setting up high expectations which I might have a hard time fulfilling.
Hi Samra, I definitely see why the Joneses are not categorized as or for personal selling because they were living a fake life. You said that some similarities between the sales tactics and your favorite brands are that you are referring to products by a friend or while hanging out and I agree with you. What the Joneses did was unethical marketing because they lied to people in order for their sales to increase. And as you said I would also feel disappointed if I were to find out their secret.
Hi Samra,
I see why you feel unsafe, but we have to learn to how to live arround all kinds of people because nowadays seems to be popular to pretend to be someone that you are not just to fit in a society that does not care about you. I know people that spend 400 or more to take a picture for social media to impress others. this movie shows how far some people are willing to go to pretend and influence.