Image from pixabay.com 

The Starbucks “Meet Me at Starbucks” campaign (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=49&v=LZVCLVGymmo) deals with the social issue of people feeling unaccepted. The message Starbucks is sending is that at their store all people are welcome and accepted. This will interest most customers because most people want to feel accepted and want to be able to express themselves, Starbucks is showcasing their stores as a safe zone for all people. The best method of analysis is Cultural criticism because the main message is that Starbucks is a community accepting of all people, which fights cultural stereotypes that people need to stick with their clicks (race, generation, gender, peers, etc.).

Starbucks’ main interest is to keep and gain customers. The audience is a Functional audience because the campaign is focused towards its everyday customers. This artifact is appealing to customers through ethos by demonstrating the store/company as a community. This will persuade current customers and new customers to keep coming to Starbucks for coffee instead of their competitors. Feeling like one is a part of a larger group can give comfort to many people. A few implications associated with this community message is that some customers will not be accepting of others. For example, if someone is anti-children, how will they feel about children being in the store? Some people might be more concerned with the acceptance of homosexuals, minorities, personalities, and more.

The campaign is a collage of video clips of customers, that were taken in one day in 26 counties filmed in multiple Starbucks’ stores. This says that the organization already has a well-known popularity because they have many locations and many customers participated in the creation of the video.

A few assumptions we can make about Starbucks through this campaign is that customers mean a lot to them because they are creating a safe space for them. Also, it shows an employee turning on lights referencing the beginning of a new day this shows that their employees are diligent. Through their words and the many customers displayed, the organization is showing that they have created a comfortable and safe store. However, this implies that society needs a safe space of acceptance because much of society is not accepting.

I hope that after reading my rhetorical analysis of the “Meet Me at Starbucks” campaign, people will understand how influential companies, specifically Starbucks, and how they do so. I will be directing my attention of Starbucks’ use of community through the appeal ethos and the benefits and implications that come with this.

Image from Starbucks.com

In this post I will examine the Rhetorical Situations in the Starbucks “Meet Me at Starbucks” campaign (the video can be found under Post #3: Identifying Organizations’ Rhetorical Strategies)

1. Exigencies:

A possible challenge in the Rhetorical Situation for Starbucks is that the company is becoming too large and customers will want to find a smaller coffee company. The unanticipated is that showcasing 28 Starbucks stores around the world will establish the grandness of the chain. The anticipated opportunity of the campaign is that the chain will feel like a close-knit family. The urgency was definitive because the film was processed in only one day. Had Starbucks had more time they maybe could have used more/better material. Like Starbucks, other organizations can glorify what some might see as a problem. This puts a positive spin on the negative.

2. Audiences:

The intended audience are functional audiences because they are composed of customers that help Starbucks function day-to-day.

3. Constraints and Assets:

A few constraints faced by Starbucks are high prices, app failures, and the controversy event of the arrest of two African Americans from a Starbucks store in Philadelphia. The assets associated with Starbucks are hardworking and dedicated employees, long hours of operation, multiple locations, and a large selection of coffees, teas, and pastries.

4. Rhetorical Situations:

The rhetorical situation is similar to a re-branding of identity. The company is attempting to reestablish itself as a small community instead of a large chain.

Video from youtube.com 

1. Medium of Delivery:

The artifact I have chosen to rhetorically analyze for Starbucks is their advertisement from September 4, 2014 called Meet Me at Starbucks. The medium for this artifact is a television commercial.

2. Ethos: Appeals to Organizational Credibility

This commercial shows Competence by showing that employees “anywhere around the world” will be at the store “on any given day.” They are saying that they and their employees are dependable and that they can produce their product successfully, daily. By not only stating what can be found an any Starbucks, but also by showing it, they are also demonstrating that they can produce a sense of Community. Community is shown in the commercial by showcasing real Starbucks customers, from 28 countries, in one day. These customers are all from different countries, races, backgrounds, and yet they are all a family because they are apart of the Starbucks family. This makes viewers want to be apart of the family too and visit a Starbucks.

3. Pathos: Appeals to Emotions

The Needs appealed to in this commercial are love and belonging, creative outlet, and inclusion. The advertisement demonstrates Starbucks as being loving and excepting which makes viewers feel included and loved. The commercial also showcases customers participating in personal hobbies in the store, this represents their store as a creative outlet for all people.

The Value being appealed to is Community. The commercial shows many people coming as one to Starbucks. The explicit appeals in the commercial describe the many qualities that can be found at Starbucks, including: love, respect, sharing, and more. These appeals are held high to society so by saying that Starbucks also has them, makes them appear trustworthy. Their is no discussion of participation in philanthropic or charitable activities or praising individuals who enact these values in this commercial.

Identification is showcased throughout the commercial because it explores that at Starbucks customers can be themselves by: using technology or sign language to communicate, play games with one another, share, and more. The commercial uses common ground by using real customers and assumed “we” by showcasing Starbucks as a community and inviting anyone and everyone into it. The use of unifying symbols is shown in Starbucks’ logo, their classic green straw, and their coffee cups. The logo is viewed more than five times through out the video and the straw can be seen more than ten times. This is shown as evidence that these customers truly are at Starbucks and that their brand is recognizable by these items. It does not show identification by antithesis.

4. Logos: Use of Claims and Evidence

The evidence represented in the Meet Me at Starbucks commercial is the many customers visiting the store. They act as testimonials which is Inductive reasoning by example. Inductive reasoning by analogy and casual reasoning are not represented in the commercial.

Image from starbucks.com

For my Analysis of Organizational Rhetoric paper, I will be researching a discussing the company Starbucks. Starbucks is a leading coffee chain that contains more than 28,000 stores worldwide. I will be analyzing this company because the majority of the United States population has purchased something from a Starbucks, or at least has some general knowledge of the company, and I feel that because of this success I can succeed from learning some of the organizational rhetoric skills. Based on benefitspro.com, Starbucks’ Human Resource department is one of the top ten best within the United States, I find this interesting because I hope to one day work in the Human Resource department, so finding out how they use rhetoric will benefit me in the future.

The audience of Starbucks is directly coffee drinking adults; however, they have noncoffee items such as hot chocolate and pastries that all adults and children can also enjoy. Knowing Starbucks’ rhetoric will give us a better understanding in how they create a brand that entices us to spend our money and help us to avoid these messages. Personally, learning from their effective rhetoric will allow me showcase similar qualities in my future career in human resources.

A few messages I can already see that Starbucks has are:

• Television and Radio Commercials
• Print and Virtual Advertisements
• Website
• Posters

The mass number of diverse messages allows their brand to reach a broader audience. Each of these medias must be pleasing and catchy to the eye and informative in their own manners, searching for each of these differences will give me a better insight in how different messages can be relayed.

The context for Starbucks is the coffee industry. How does Starbucks continue to be a leading coffee distributor? How do they compete with competitors like Dunkin Donuts and at-home brands like Keurig? Where do they get their coffee beans from and for how much? Answering these questions will allow me to understand how they control the coffee industry in the United States.