Introduction
The movie; The Joneses introduces its audience with the Joneses moving into a new gated community in an Audi SUV where they hope to earn the admiration of everyone with their stylish lifestyle that has been supported by their employer. They move in as a family with Steve and Kate as the parents of two high schoolers, Jennifer (Jenn) and Mick with each of them with a specialty in which they should concentrate on. Their lifestyle is a marketing strategy that hopes to drive the neighborhood consumerism into the company’s products. They acquire numerous customers such that their boss – KC – seeks to promote Steve to ‘Icon Status’ where he declines in preference to Kate whom their relationship had been developing over time.
Essentially, their progress was irrefutable with the objectives of engaging the neighborhood into purchasing the products being so effective that their neighbor, Larry failed to pay the rates to purchase the goodies in the bid to please his wife, Summer.
Consumer Decision-Making
Consumer behavior is different in different cultures and subcultures such that different societies embrace certain values, ideas and attitudes to define their right course of action. Similar societies have similar consumer habits that is unique to them affecting significantly their buying patterns. Also, social classes define the buying patterns that are exhibited by a certain society that is divided from the rest due to similarity in values, interests and behavior. The social classes are built on the basis of similar education, sources of income and occupational factors. Besides, personal influence could affect buying patterns through opinion leaders and word of mouth. Opinion leaders will directly or indirectly affect the consumer decision of a person through social influence while word of mouth could include the face–to–face conversation as well as the use of various messaging, e-mailing or electronic message passing protocols that affect the consumer decision.
Also, reference groups are indirect appraisal groups that one associates with to evaluate the standards that he/she is supposed to maintain. As such, a consumer could buy items based on the buying patterns or lifestyle of the reference group. Family life cycle is a factor of age that defines the buying habits that keep changing as a family progresses from formation to retirement. It is divided into phases that exhibit unique purchasing behaviour.
Socio-Cultural Influences Depicted in The Joneses
Essentially, The Joneses targeted a gated community which was a posh locality implying a viable market for prestige goods. Besides, the posh locality exhibited a culture of lavish sports such as golf and high-end video gaming products marketed by Mick that were offered by the KC’s company. Larry, the neighbour, had to buy gifts to please her wife as was the culture. Their lifestyle poses a challenge to the neighbours who use them as their reference group with Kate using the hairdresser’s trust in her products to sell the beauty products. Besides, their show-off parties aim at making every one jealous of their lifestyle influencing them into consumer habits similar to theirs.
Steve and Kate personally influence their guests to use a specific travel company that they use for Safari tours to Kenya. Besides, the company uses Jenn who is a beautiful teenager to influence teenagers as an opinion leader into buying products similar to those that she uses.
Conclusion
Essentially, the community depicts the levels of addiction the society is subjected to when lavish lifestyles are unveiled before them. Besides, the movie reveals how companies are adopting unique and sophisticated marketing strategies to win customers (McDonald, Matthew & Wearing 97). To the companies, the social effect matters less than the profitability of the company.
Works Cited
McDonald, Matthew, and Stephen Wearing. Social psychology and theories of consumer culture: A political economy perspective. Routledge, 2013.
