Author Archives: Tania Maree

Giordani – The Joneses

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

In some ways, I would categorize the way the Jones family lives as personal selling because their technique involves many of the techniques of personal selling explained in our reading. Acting as a family with a trendy lifestyle and full of charismatic personalities enabled the Jones’ to have conversations with potential consumers across gender, age, and interest groups. Their entire public life and personalities were comprised of demonstrations of the products and the conversations and parties they hosted allowed them to utilize the technique of addressing objections. 

Additionally, I noticed an example of reference selling when Steve connects with a young salesman at the country club. By booking a lesson with this young man, Steve was able to forge a connection with the salesman and use his skillset to boost the man’s confidence regarding the recommendations he made Steve, thereby creating a satisfied customer of sorts. In turn, we see the salesman use his experiences from the lessons he has with Steve as a sales tactic when engaging other country club members. Because everyone is trying to keep up with the most trendy + exclusive items, many of the men in the film become influenced to keep purchasing various items. In my opinion, Steve essentially created a loop of reference selling and this tactic made his sales stats increase explosively. 

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.

Ever since the pandemic became widespread in early 2020, many younger consumers have started to reject the idea of celebrity and instead resonate with content from people who either are or appear to be your average person. I think that brands have started to pay attention to this more and more as evidenced by the large amount of user-generated content that brands will pay for or ask to repost from their customers. Affiliate marketing has also become huge. The common thread is that I’m seeing many brands work with influencers and people who already use their products, or who could easily appear as if they do.  

I think that these practices are similar to what The Jones Family did. However, the Jones’ lives were entirely fabricated, I see fewer and fewer examples of influencers and content creators pretending to use/like a product as a sales tactic. It’s definitely a practice that occurs, but I think I’ve finally managed to train apps to not suggest that kind of content to me. 

Some brands that I’ve seen use this tactic are Eat Loisa and Nama. I find that brands in the cosmetics industry more closely mimic the Jones Family’s tactic. Brands like Benefit, Tarte, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and Victoria’s secret will often host brand trips that have very little to do with the products that they sell (makeup, undergarments, lingerie), and way more to selling you on a lifestyle. 

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?

While all sales tactics rely on convincing the potential consumer to make a purchase, I think the techniques of the Jones Family could be categorized as extremely unethical. The deep manipulation (and age-inappropriate relationships) they needed to engage in so as to make their sales goals led to people ruining and ending their lives. No sale is worth that in my opinion.

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

I think it would be difficult for me to be friends with someone in the Jones family before I found out their secret. Though all of them were extremely charming in their own ways, I don’t enjoy being in environments where there is a push to overconsume all of the time. I think if we were friends and I found out their secret I would feel deeply betrayed due to realizing the entire relationship was based upon manipulation.

Tania Maree Giordani                                                               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 05/07/2023
NourishNYC I, Inc.
(929) 766-5229
tmg@nourishnyc.org
www.nourishnyc.org

NourishNYC Launches Party Series to Help New Yorkers Pay Rent &
Support Local Community Organizations

New York, NY: Today, NourishNYC, a Harlem-based grassroots 501(c)3 community organization dedicated to building and practicing a holistic approach to community care, announced that they are launching a series of parties beginning on May 26, 2023, to fundraise for New Yorkers and local community organizations that are struggling to keep up with the ever-rising cost of living.

The first event for the “Fire, Fire, Gentrifier” party series will be a party in Bushwick on May 26, 2023, from 9p-1a. Tickets are available on NourishNYC’s website and range from $5-30. Snacks and refreshments will be available.

When asked about the inspiration behind the parties, NourishNYC Founder & Director Tania Maree Giordani said, “As inflation continues to rise, and the housing crisis grows larger, we’ve seen the need for assistance for basic necessities explode. Recently, a friend shared that their neighbor disclosed that they are experiencing homelessness and would like help raising money so that they can secure a stable home and get back on their feet. Over the last year, I’ve seen countless small organizations, including our own, and community fridge groups struggle to fundraise. This has forced many of us to close essential programs temporarily, and for others to shut down their operations permanently. Inspired by the 1920s Harlem rent parties – we decided to start this series to help all of us fundraise and connect with each other.”

About NourishNYC: NourishNYC is a Harlem-based community organization dedicated to building and practicing a holistic approach to community care by centering the needs of Black Queer and Trans New Yorkers. Founded in 2020, the grassroots organization has distributed over $700k to the community through microgrants, books, clothing, essential goods, and free events.

 

Week F – Shark Tank Assignment

The pitch that resonated with me the most was Kayla Lupean’s pitch for Play Maysie. I have been working with young kids for 10 years, both as an educator and as a babysitter/nanny, so I am very familiar with the pain of stepping on stray legos. Beyond not having to deal with the annoyances caused by stepping on and having to clean up small toys, I appreciate Play Maysie’s goals of being sustainable and encouraging children of all genders to engage in doll play.

Described by Kayla as “a portable dollhouse for quality play on the go and less mess at home,” the Play Maysie dollhouse cases were inspired by vintage tin lunch boxes. When they are opened, the case contains two interchangeable rooms with magnetic floors and wooden floors, and because of the structure of the case and the materials inside, clean-up and storage are extremely easy.

This product fills the need for toys that are quick and easy to clean up, won’t hurt so badly when accidentally stepped on, and encourages children of all genders to engage in imagination play (which helps with emotional, social, language development and more) all while also being sustainable for the environment and portable. This is a product that is both fun for children and nostalgic for adults (through the case design and the nod to the paper dolls era that many of us grew up in). With all of this considered, and as evidenced by the revenue that Kayla was able to amass in her first couple of years of sales, the Play Maysie dollhouses are absolutely filling a hole in the toy market.

The price for the toy ($49.99) is quite expensive for the average American household, especially considering the ways that inflation is impacting most households’ disposable income. I think that the toy design as is great, but I would love to see a more affordable version of the dollhouses offered, more patterns, and more diversity in the dolls. By increasing the diversity of the dolls and providing a more affordable version of the dollhouses, I think that Play Maysie will be able to appeal to more kinds of households. I think that Play Maysie’s website does a great job of sharing its story while also encouraging visitors to biome customers. Though their website is great, I think that their Instagram feed is somewhat inconsistent in regard to their posting schedule. I think that they should post more consistently and engage with their digital community better (engage via comments etc vs just liking comments). I would love to see more of the content that Play Maysie posts on YouTube, on their Instagram. They have stop-motion animation videos on their YouTube, and I think this can further induce nostalgia for parents who grew up when this type of animation was more popular, while also introducing a new generation of children to yet another form of play that they can easily engage in with their dollhouse. Furthermore, during her pitch, Kayla mentioned that she has a children’s book coming out and will be writing more about the stories of the dolls. Animating these stories with stop animation or claymation techniques would be incredibly cute and fun, and, in my opinion, would perform very well on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Tania M Giordani – Week D Assignment

Assuming I’ve just moved to SLC, making life as easy for myself as possible while I’m first settling in would be my top priority. Whenever I’m in a new area, whether it be for traveling or living, I love to explore restaurants in various parts of that place as a way of familiarizing myself with it. If I enjoy a place, I will visit regularly as, in my opinion, this is an effective way to start establishing roots and building community with others. (1st stage)

Because I am unfamiliar with SLC, the first place that I looked for a restaurant is on the app Resy. Similar to OpenTable and Yelp, Resy is a reservation-making platform that also enables customers to leave reviews. I prefer this app because it suggests recommendations based on my previous reservations, and makes it easy for me to note my dining preferences, special requests, and the severity of my food allergy. Resy did not have any Italian restaurants listed for SLC, so my next choice was to look up ‘Italian Restaurants in Salt Lake City’ on Google.  This yielded a list of results with their reviews and photos of the restaurants and food. (2nd stage) When searching this way, I first look at the pictures of the food to see if it looks appetizing to me and to have a sense of the restaurant’s atmosphere, then I read reviews. After doing this, I settled on looking at Osteria Amore and Valter’s Osteria’s websites. (3rd stage)

I don’t spend a lot of money on anything aside from my necessities (and I heavily believe in making my life as easy and enjoyable for myself as I can), so the number one thing that I take into consideration when browsing a menu is if there’s a decent mix of dishes I’m familiar with and unfamiliar with. After taking a look at both restaurants’ menus, I chose to go with Osteria Amore because they have a great mix of pasta and non-pasta dishes and because I like their wine list. Additionally, since they have pizza and pasta on their menu, I would feel confident that I could order a couple of additional dishes that would reheat well to eat throughout the week. (4th stage)

After completing this exercise, I am left surprised at how quickly I can make decisions about what I’d like to eat in this sort of scenario. I am the kind of person to eat the same types of food for weeks/months at a time and spend a long time thinking about which restaurants to order from after I’ve become familiar with a neighborhood. For example, when I first moved into my current apartment it only took me about 5-15m to choose where to eat because everything was fairly new to me. After having lived here for 2 years, I sometimes take an hour to decide. I think this is because I’ve found so many restaurants I like and because I have so many other factors to way into the decision, the largest ones being my social life and needing to factor in time for transportation. 

I think that where my decision-making process might differ from other consumers is that I don’t take price heavily into consideration when choosing where to eat out, especially in a scenario like this where I have moved to a new place. I have a very demanding workload time-wise, and I always include a significant budget for eating meals out in my moving budget. Moving is a stressful time, let alone moving while balancing work and all of the emotions that come with the process –  It’s important to me that I show up for myself in these stressful moments by not only providing ease for myself where/when I can but also by doing it in ways that provide me with comfort and nourishment. 

Giordani – Siggi’s Ethics Week B Assignment

Feeling homesick in 2004, Siggi Hilmarsson craved one of his childhood-comfort foods, skyr (a thick, creamy, protein-rich yogurt from Iceland) and began experimenting with a recipe from his mother in his NYC apartment. Out of his experimentation, siggi’s, an Icelandic skyr brand, was born in 2005. I’ve always noticed siggi’s on the shelf when grocery shopping but, as an avid Noosa consumer, I’d not been inspired to actually try their skyr until I noticed that their products are made with significantly less sugar because I was preparing a small tub of it for the baby I care for.  The label on siggi’s nonfat yogurts are made of paper and are removable. On the inside there are a couple of pictures and short copy describing their company’s story. This inspired me to dig deeper into the company’s history and sustainability practices (the labels on these containers make it easier to recycle them). 

When looking into any company’s sustainability practices I am interested not only in their environmental practices, but their commitment to treating the people who are involved in the creation of their products humanely and ethically. In the “supply chain disclosures” siggi’s defines their commitment as: 

We believe that we have a responsibility to conduct our business in an ethical and sustainable way and expect the same from our suppliers, thus we strive to build long-term business relationships that demonstrate a commitment to fair treatment of workers and environmental responsibility. This includes working to combat the practices of forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking. 

This is a more bold and direct stance than I have seen most companies take in regards to the way that the humans involved in their supply-chain are listed. Because their “supply chain disclosures” page starts off so strongly, I was surprised to read only a couple of paragraphs down that, although siggi’s has a hotline so that anyone working at/with companies that are a part of their supply chain can report a violation of the standards siggi’s has set, siggi’s does not currently have an auditing process in place for companies that they work with. 

Beyond expressing a commitment to sustainability and ethical practices within their supply chain, siggi’s has a grant program called “siggi’s starters” which “empowers nutrition professionals seeking to develop innovative programs to improve health in their local communities” by providing the winner with a $20k grant and mentorship to develop and execute their concept. After taking a look at which stores neighborhoods it is most common to find siggi’s in, the price point of their products, and scrolling through their Instagram page, I am curious about what the racial and socio-economic demographics of their average consumers are. The siggi’s starters program is a phenomenal opportunity, but I am curious to whom this opportunity is being advertised and if it is reaching nutrition professionals, creators, and community-leaders who are marginalized and are less likely to gain access to essential funding & mentorship. 

Furthermore, siggi’s was founded in New York City. So, after thinking about what I’ve mentioned above, my initial suggestions for siggi’s to honor the commitments they have made are as follows: 

  • Instagram + Blog: Partner with more creators, nutritionists, bloggers, etc…, who are from a wider array of racial, ethnic, gender, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds to display a genuine commitment to reflecting the cultures and people of the city they were founded in. By doing this, I believe siggi’s could reach more people who have brilliant ideas for health-initiatives to apply for their siggi’s starters grant. 
  • Develop an auditing process: As siggi’s continues to grow, I would like to see them develop an auditing process for the businesses that make up their supply-chain so that they can ensure they are actually honoring the commitment they have made, as opposed to relying on the hope of people reporting injustices via their hotline. I think the hotline is an incredible start, but I believe that the onus of ensuring ethical procedures are being followed should not fall upon workers. 

Overall, I am genuinely excited to see the ways in which siggi’s continues to grow, to learn about their current commitments to sustainability and ethics, and to see if/how the ways they honor these commitments continue to evolve. 

Tania Maree Giordani

Hi! My first name is Tania Maree, but most people call me 'tmg.' I'm from Chicago but live in Harlem. I am majoring in Digital Marketing at BMCC in hopes of expanding upon my current skills. I teach Spanish at a bookstore that I help run in Bushwick, Mil Mundos Books, and have to utilize digital marketing in order to sell our courses.

Aside from that, I run a small community org called NourishNYC in my free time and I am currently raising money to open a community center in Harlem.

I find that having an accountability partner always helps when taking classes, so if anyone wants to connect to discuss coursework feel free to reach out.

My BMCC email is: Tania.Giordani@stu.bmcc.cuny.edu