Coca-Cola Company Rhetorical Analysis

Mr. Herbert, an executive of the Coca-Cola company, in his letter tried to persuade Mr. Seaver. Herbert’s purpose was to request for Mr. Seaver to change their slogan for the book because his company “owns” the slogan, “It's the real thing”. He used a formal and friendly tone in order to professionally but in a demanding way to request that the Grove Press Inc. will change their slogan. His appeal to logic and his credibility was used to convince Mr. Seaver. While Grove Press representative, R. W. Seaver, criticizes Mr. Herbert on his claim that Coca-Cola owns the phrase “It’s the real thing”. Seaver wanted to persuade and inform Mr. Herbert that they’re still going to use the slogan though they understand they own the phrase. Seaver portrays a tone that is understanding on why they can’t use the phrase but at the same time it is sarcastic since Herbert’s logic is illogical. To sum, Seaver uses logic, supportive tone, and other data to get his point through that they won’t budge on changing the slogan.

Herbert begins his Letter by acknowledging the effects of having similar slogans and their outcomes. Through the appeal to logic, Herbert claims that having the same slogan will cause confusion between both Coca-Cola and the book Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher, he indicates “There will always be a likelihood of confusion as to the source of sponsorship of the goods” (p 3). Although his logic is weak, Herbert shows Mr. Seaver the problems that may occur since they have the same slogan in order to convince Mr. Seaver to change his advertisement theme. The effect of using this logic was to reinforce the idea that having similar slogans will cause problems between the two companies. This was used to convince Mr. Seaver that he and his company should change their slogan to prevent