The Jones family can definitely be categorized as personal selling. They have used several techniques through out the movie such as conversation and demonstration, like on the golf course where Steve shows off the new design of the clubs and gains sales through the staff recommendation rather than directly.

The main point that the Jones family gave off with their selling techniques was that this next product would make you better or happier somehow. This is very similar to a lot of popular brands now, ie the tracksuit everyone buys because of how attractive and confident Kate looks in hers. One could even say reference selling in which the members of the family themselves are the happy customers with positive results from a product, one such example could be the earrings that Steve shows Larry saying he intends to gift them to his “wife” Kate.

I wouldn’t consider their selling techniques ethical as they weren’t genuine in their reality. Even with social media posts, the viewer is aware that there is editing and other tools used to perfect the image being posted. In the movie, people are losing what they have to achieve something that isn’t even real. A lot of the time people lose sight of the fact that the reality isn’t necessarily what they are being shown. But at the end of the day being unethical doesn’t mean something is illegal; it is a value question and the answer can vary from person to person.

I would like to be friends with someone happy and confident who shared tips but if I were to find out that they were actually trying to sell me something; I wouldn’t feel comfortable as there would be an immediate doubt as to whether they are genuine or not.

Would you categorize the way the Jones family lives as personal selling? Why or why not?

I would categorize the way that the jones lives as personal selling because they use their interpersonal skills to persuade their neighborhoods in buying the products. They involve a personal touch. They connected with their customer and demonstration about the product for in their daily life.

What similarities do you see between the sales tactics the Jones family employs and the marketing tactics of some of your favorite brands?

Most of my favorite brands also uses a lifestyle to persuade their customer to sell the products. Many of the fashion brands they throw collections with influencers or artist, so their fans follow the lifestyle and buy the products. One example of a brand that promote clothes collections with influencers, youtubers and artist is Shein.

Based on what you read in the course materials and what you observed in this movie, do you think the way products are marketed in this movie is ethical?

Even though they were not doing something illegal I feel is unethical because they made friends and were pretending to be someone who they are not. they were selling a product with a lifestyle and experience that was not real and that potential customers could feel cheated because the products that they understood worked because of fake experiences did not work for them.  How would you feel if you were friends with someone in the Jones family before you found out their secret? What about afterward? I would feel cheated and not because I was ever influenced to buy a product per se, but because of the approach that carried out the purchase because they sale to me with experiences never lived and a friendship that never exited

Steve, Kate, Jenn, and Mick Jones look like a perfect family who moved to a suburban neighborhood. They appear to be the model of perfection. The neighbors all wish they could be like them. And by being this perfect, they sell their products. The family is just a collection of four strange individuals who are trying to sell things. I’d caterogize the family as personal seliing. It is clear from the start that they are trying to sell their products. They didn’t waste time.  One of their first tasks after moving into the new house was to get a picture taken. Once someone snapped the picture Mick began telling about the camera, not forgetting to mention the brand. Despite the fact that the family was not selling the products, they were expressing how great they were, and how much they recommended them. Instead of comparing the family to the brand, I would compare it to influencers, podcasters, and youtubers. They get paid by telling their listeners how much they like a certain product and how they couldn’t live without it. Influencers and youtubers often present their lives as perfect. People are not willing to show the bad parts of their lives on social media, which is understandable. People aren’t always aware that their lives aren’t as flawless as those people show them to be. There were definitely unethical marketing methods in this movie.  The family moved to a new town. The family tried to convince other families that their lives aren’t perfect. When I met this family, I’d probably believe them at first, but after getting to know them better, I’d become suspicious of how perfect their lives are.

After watching “The Joneses” movie I would put them in a personal selling product category because they tried to make connections and build relationship with other people to sell their product to them by convincing them after they got to know them very well. 

I have many favorite brands similar to the Jones family sales tactics which are high-class brands like Gucci, LV, Versace, and Rolex they are using the same way to convince people to buy from their product and they are showing off their product in beautiful models and try to influence many artists and famous people from a high-class to buy. 

I don’t think the way products are marketed in this movie is ethical because entering people’s lives and trying to let them close to you because of your interest and benefits with a lie is not a good idea to do in marketing. Building a relationship like this with convention makes people hurt in the end because if you’re close to each other and you both are rich but one is richer than the other it will make the other person try to be richer as he/she can to be better with their lifestyle. For example, Steve and Larry were both rich and friends but it ended up with Larry’s death because of the competition they had which Larry couldn’t make an effort to be richer than Steve. 

If I were friends with someone in the Jones family before I found out they’re secret it doesn’t matter to me at all if a friend of mine is rich or poor everyone needed to be treated equally, but for sure I would be a friend to them because of the way they had show off they are a beautiful family and planned everything they did very well it convince many of their neighbors for wanted to build a relationship.  Afterward, knowing their secrets I will cut off my relationship with people like this because friendship and any relation needed to build with honesty, real people, caring and love for sure and that family didn’t have any of this to others they only want their business to grow up that’s all.

Would you categorize the way the Jones family lives as personal selling? Why or why not?

In the movie, The Joneses, the “Joneses” were pretending to be the “perfect” family unit to catch the attention of the people in the town, and have the people want to be so much like them, that they would buy the products and things used. This was a marketing ploy the “Joneses” used. I believe their tactics would be categorized as personal selling. Although they were not directly selling products, they used the power of perception and peer pressure to get the people to want to be like them and make the people want what they have.  Indirectly they were personal selling because they would talk about how great these things were and would show them off.

What similarities do you see between the sales tactics the Jones family employs and the marketing tactics of some of your favorite brands? Give an example.

Brands use similar marketing tactics to these all the time. Even though brands are not paying people to pretend to be the “perfect” families to sell their products, they do this through things like commercials and advertisements. A great example of this would be the “Subways” commercials with Jared Fogle. In the commercials, Jared compares the calories of other fast food sandwiches to the Subways sandwiches. In one commercial he even says that the Subways sandwich is exactly half the calories of a McDonald’s Big Mac, and that’s how he lost his weight by eating half the calories. Although Jared didn’t lose his weight by eating only Subways sandwiches, these commercials gave viewers the impression that if they eat Subways they could lose weight like Jared.

Based on what you read in the course materials and what you observed in this movie, do you think the way products are marketed in this movie is ethical?

When we think of Ethics we consider lying to be unethical. Because the “Joneses” lied to the people of the town I would consider the way they marketed the products to be somewhat unethical. The fact that they lied and pretended to be the “Perfect” family to get people to want to be like them is unethical but, I also think it would be ethical as well. Brands market to people all the time using the power of perception to get people to buy their products. Although most people realize that commercials and ads are fake, it still makes people say I want to be like “that” and buy those products. What the “Joneses” did was put on a “show” to sell products, which I consider ethical, the fact that the people of the town didn’t know it was a “show” makes it unethical. The idea in itself is ethical the way they went about it was unethical.

‘How would you feel if you were friends with someone in the Jones family before you found out their secret? What about afterward?

If I were one of the people who got close to a member of the “Joneses” family I would have thought that this is a very nice family. I would have wondered how they could afford all the things they have and would be skeptical at their vague answers. I am a naturally curious person and would have tried to figure out how they could afford all their luxurious things. After finding out that they were deceiving us all to get us to buy products I would of felt hurt. My opinions on them would completely shift to thinking these were not nice people. To build bonds and friendships just to use us in that way is not nice. At least with a salesperson in a store you know they are going to be nice to you because they want you to buy stuff. The “Joneses” family pretended to be actual friends with these people.

I’m not going to lie; the movie was quite interesting. And after viewing it, I’d classify the Joneses’ life as personal selling or “self-marketing.” The Joneses are professional early adopters in the film, hired to imitate a family unit and consume the sponsor’s items. They made sales by creating contacts, organizing parties, and, most importantly, presenting the items in their daily lives. Each member of the family had a specific category of products/brands to sell to the people of the town.

The marketing strategies utilized by the Jones family are comparable to those used by modern businesses. Named Collective, Kith, Glow Recipe, Gucci, and other of my favorite businesses employ the same strategy as the Jones family, known as the “ripple effect.” The expanding influence or impact of a product or message that began with a single point of origin is shown by the ripple effect. This tactic is used by my favorite and other businesses by offering things to influencers to advertise on social media or in their daily life to attract other customers to buy them.

The methods used to advertise the items in this film were unethical since they were all based on falsehoods. To sell the items, the family lied to their neighbors and friends regularly. They utilized their phony wealthy lifestyle to entice customers, which is blatantly immoral.

If I were friends with the Jones family, I’d be intrigued about how they afford all of this, and I’d probably want to buy some of it myself. But I wouldn’t be as connected to them since all they could do was flaunt themselves. If I discovered their secret, I would absolutely report them for manipulating people by pretending to be wealthy.

However, I believe their strategy was incredibly effective and resulted in significant sales. It was also interesting to see how everyone played their part in persuading clients to buy the items and how readily people may be persuaded. Overall, the movie was great.

I would categorize the way the Joneses family lives as personal selling. Personal selling is an important form of advertising through themselves by personalizing the approach they give to the customer. It means that the seller of the product is interacting with the consumer in order to get them to purchase their goods. The Joneses’ entire life was to sell and promote, evidently it was their lifestyle. They made many connections and demonstrations in their everyday life to sell products that their company provided. They needed the relationships they created with people in order to sell their products. In the movie Kate Jones looks expensive and if everything she wears is personalized and fitted to her. She can sell the tracksuit without even speaking. Personally if I were to see Kate Jones in the streets I would just go up and ask her where her outfit was from myself. She is entirely advertising by the way she just looks as an individual. 

One of my favorite brands are Nike and H&M. Nike uses effective strategies such as celebrity sports endorsements, buying out competing sports brands, and using retail stores so they can meet their consumers without investing large amounts of money by opening chain specific stores. The Joneses use models and other people to promote their business. The exact same thing occurs with Nike by using celebrities in sports in their commercials and in meets up and just by simplifying having them wear their shoes and clothes.

The marketing is unethical. They built relationships and connections and in the end it was all a cover and a lie. They faked being rich and were essentially untouchable in a sense. They were like in a sort of a hierarchy in a sense by moving to an area where people were unhappy. By bringing their facade of a family to this area the people in there looked up to them in a way. Their sales were motivated by having to live up to a certain lifestyle and greed and envy. 

Personally if I were friends with someone in the Joneses family before finding out their secret I would lose all trust in them. I would wonder and question their morals as an individual. I would feel led on and wouldn’t even want to be friends with them  at all. I would feel disgusted and feel like the friendship and bond I had with them was never real. I would feel anger as well because of what they perceived themselves as and feel bad for the people they affected including myself. 

People desire to be like the Joneses because they’re attractive, friendly, wealthy, and they constantly appear to be ahead of the game in terms of what they drive, wear, play, and consume. They never brag about themselves. People aspire to be like them. The Jones family’s lifestyles are best described as personal selling because they devoted their lives to introducing and promoting many things to potential buyers.

Some similarities and tactics I see between the Jones family and some of my favorite brands are how they use people to promote their brands. Many companies now pay individuals with many followers on social media to wear their products so their business will sell. Also, everyone wants it as soon as one famous person wears it and starts reposting the consequences; this is shown with the Telfar bags. As soon as Beyonce wore one of their bags, they began to sell out.

The Jones lifestyle is unethical. They moved into a wealthy neighborhood and played pretend family to market and sell products. They made it seem like they were the perfect family that is smart and rich when in reality, they are not. Although their sales tactics worked, it was not ethically correct.

I am not a person easily influenced by name brands and fancy items. However, if in their shoes, I would feel that I was playing. The way the Jones family portrayed themselves made their friends want to be like them.