“The Joneses” was presented throughout a wealthy community as a regular family. When in reality they’re salesmen pushing their wealthy neighbors into buying products. I would categorize the way the Jones family lives as personal selling. With an innocent image as the perfect family, the joneses easily were able to influence with different tactics to manipulate them into thinking their lifestyle was the right style to follow, which meant following what products they bought and used.
The similarities I seen between the sales tactics the Jones family employed and the marketing tactics of some of my favorite brands would be when Kate Jones decided to talk a little run around the neighborhood marketing her sweat suit and her sneakers. This tactic was used upon me, when I started going to the gym I didn’t have anything “cute” workout clothes, but I would always see many people with the same workout brand “Gymshark”. I soon started seeing myself buying that same exact brand. The story repeated when I would see new people at the gym slowly but surely started wearing “Gymshark” as well.
Based on what I learned in this course, I observed that the way products were marketed was unethical. Although everyone has different points of view I could see that their way of marketing was unethical it was ethical as well. The Jones was only looking for their interest and the sales of the companies products. Not noticing they were breaking their “friends” trust. Back stabbing them for their own convenience, which made me believed that how the Jones did business was unethical. on the other hand it was a job that they had to do, and all knew what they were getting involved in. For that reason I see how they were ethical.
If I were friend with the Jones family before finding out their secret, I would honestly feel betrayed and heart-broken. When I give anybody my trust it takes a long time because I’ve always had my guard up. I do feel like I would like an explanation especially if we had gotten close to a point. After finding out I do feel like I wouldn’t talk/socialize to them again, and have trouble trusting people after this experience.
