In reality, Kate is the leader of a team of stealth marketers, professional salespeople who disguise product placement as a daily routine.

[2] Their clothing, accessories, furniture, and even food are carefully planned and stocked by various companies to create visibility in a desirable consumer market.

Eventually, Steve begins to find a sales tactic that works by playing on the fears of his neighbors and sympathizing with their dull, repetitive, unfulfilled careers.

Realizing that they can boost sales by perfecting their fake family dynamic to sell the image of a lifestyle, the lines between acting and reality start to break down.

Things also get more complicated when Mick finds himself growing closer to an unpopular girl at the high school, Naomi, in whom he can confide.

Once when an old acquaintance of Steve's recognizes him at a restaurant, again when Jenn's indiscretions nearly expose her real age, and after a party where Mick markets alcohol to minors.

Mick has a crisis of conscience when Naomi gets into a car accident after drinking too much of a wine cooler they were marketing to teens.

The critical consensus states: "It doesn't pursue its subversive premise as far as it should, but The Joneses benefits from its timely satire of consumer culture – as well as a pair of strong performances from David Duchovny and Demi Moore.