TOW #6: Starbucks' Visual Rhetoric

The idea for this TOW came to me a few weeks ago, while I was at Starbucks after school with Hannah. We were heading out, and as I went to throw my coffee cup away, I realized the words on the trash can: "Landfill" and "Recycle". I bemoaned putting my cup in the landfill side of the bin, feeling incredibly upset by the idea of my piece of trash going to a landfill where it would stay there for an eternity, so I put it in the recycling side. Hannah and I joked about how the diction used on the Starbucks trash can was effective in making people want to recycle, and how I should "do my next TOW on it." I realized that a lot of Starbucks' successful marketing strategies can actually be connected back to their use of rhetoric, and decided to actually follow through on that promise. Here I am.

Starbucks is an incredibly profitable business built off of a common American interest: coffee. Established in 1971, the company at first had humble beginnings in Seattle, Washington. However, it grew rapidly over the next 50 years, becoming one of the world's biggest billion-dollar corporations to date. The various aspects involved in Starbucks' success include its in-store aesthetic, its word choice in advertisements, and imagery used in store displays to entice customers to purchase their coffee.

The visual aesthetics of Starbucks stores around the country help make it a welcoming and enticing environment for customers. The colors used stick to a neutral palette, with warm browns and bright coppers adorning the interior of the store. The use of these colors create a calming atmosphere for patrons - I know when I enter Starbucks, I immediately feel at home, between the color palette to the scent of coffee to the soft acoustic music playing throughout the store. Starbucks has set up specific playlists to be played in its stores, and the music within these playlists are calming and welcoming, helping keep old customers coming back and attracting new customers all at the same time.

Starbucks Coffee - Portland, Oregon

The use of rhetoric in the various advertisements used for different Starbucks products is incredibly effective at attracting new customers to the stores. The imagery selected is is of a high-quality beverage, appealing to the senses. This is the sole image on the advertisement, which serves its purpose: to display a product and make customers enticed to buy it. The words are simple: "Here's to the best part of your day", showing the crowd appeal of the cappuccinos. The word choice on this advertisement is similar to that of the trash cans in Starbucks - simple, straightforward, and to the point. The main words on the trash cans are "Someday everything will be recyclable. Until then, let's sort it out together. Thanks." The use of collective words like "let's" and "together" let customers know that Starbucks is with them: they are not a heartless, faceless corporation. The strong negative diction on the trash side, using "Landfill", encourage customers to rethink their decisions and tendencies to automatically throw everything in the trash. These words prove very effective, as Starbucks prides itself on its environmental conservation policies.

TOW #5: "can your selfie really change the world?"

can your selfie really change the world? is an article that was published in i-D magazine, a British magazine dedicated to fashion, music, art, and youth culture, which holds a major presence both online and offline. The article serves as a kind of counterargument to the modern feminist notion that selfies can be used as radical acts of self-love on social media, displaying body positivity and encouraging women to uplift others online. Bertie Brandes plays devil's advocate as she takes a very different stance on the issue - one that is not necessarily negative, but shows the flaws in this way of thinking.

Brandes begins her piece by describing a common struggle faced by any social-media addict: a "Storage Almost Full" message that occurs at the most inopportune times. By describing her own obsession with social media, Brandes appeals to ethos in an attempt to show audiences her familiarity with the subject. She is a millennial, just like her audience, and is not immune to the addictions of the internet. Her experiences with social media are important to helping her achieve her purpose. She takes quite an antagonistic view of selfie culture, but her credibility and established reputation aid her article, preventing it from becoming a competition of pointing fingers and blaming others.

Brandes cites Laura Mulvey's 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" to help her define the male gaze, a topic which she goes into a lot of detail about in her exploration of selfies. Citing such a cornerstone of second-wave feminism helps Brandes appeal to ethos. The reference gives her argument more weight as she turns the male gaze around, creating the "female gaze", one of self-reflection and admiration rather than dominance.

Brandes achieves her purpose effectively through her appeals to ethos and logos and through personal experience, which helps tremendously when you are taking a stance that may be unpopular or ill-received. Her point is clear and unchanging: as important as it is to normalize self-love, the movement started on social media may be as exclusive and damaging as the stereotypes it sets out to defeat.

TOW #4: "The Feminine Mystique" (IRB)

Reading The Feminine Mystique in 2016 is particularly interesting. Betty Friedan revolutionized feminism in the 20th century with this book, gaining attention from critics and fans alike. But I find the statistics she cites shocking, and it was difficult to grapple with as I began reading. Friedan begins by describing 'the problem that has no name' by quoting statistics from the end of the 1950s - "Fourteen million girls were engaged by 17. The proportion of women attending college in comparison with men dropped from 47 percent in 1920 to 35 percent in 1958" (2). When I look at the historical narrative that commonly accompanies a discussion about women's rights, it's often shown that women had more freedoms and enjoyed more pursuits of things like education as time went on. The reality of feminism is that it has not, and never will be, a linear pursuit. As society changes, feminism changes with it, and things like education and marriage fluctuate. It does, however, set up the circumstances within which Friedan is writing: early 1960s America.

What I had to consider going into this book was the fact that this data might be shocking to me because of my privilege living in 2016. I have grown up in a world where it is common for women to pursue higher education, and many women have put off marriage until their late twenties in order to devote time to their careers and social lives. However, the world Friedan writes for is much different. Those who have grown up in the culture often accept these standards as truth without calling them into question, which is why The Feminine Mystique was so radical. Women were living increasingly domestic lives, with larger families and more responsibilities that kept them inside the home. Post-WWII, many of the women previously in the workforce resigned as their husbands returned from war.

Friedan acknowledges these societal pressures in her accounts of women across America. The testimonies of women from every social class and background are what make this book really enjoyable to read. It is interesting to see from the perspective of a woman during this time, and helps add weight to the ideas Friedan cites from experts. Friedan's appeal to logos combines with her appeal to pathos as she includes these accounts from women. However, it's clear that she seems to hold the opinions of real women higher than those of any proclaimed "expert", as she says. "According to the experts they are, but listen to these four women" (56). Sometimes the things women say are completely contrary to the beliefs of a male psychologist.

Overall, reading The Feminine Mystique has been an eye-opening experience for me. The ways Friedan weaves myth with fact, expert ideas with testimonial accounts, and past with present combine to create an engaging and thought-provoking work that expands on the growing topic that is feminism. Reading this book in the 21st century has proven to be no small feat, but it certainly is an enjoyable one.