A Rhetorical Analysis Of 'It's The Real Thing'

The year is 1970. Coca-Cola and its company is continuing to swim in its own profits. Grove Press Publishing is prospering as well, having recently published the book, Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher. The marketing campaigns to these two companies, however, seem oddly similar and Coca-Cola took notice, having Ira C. Herbert draft a complaint letter to a Grove Press representative, Richard Seaver, for the use of the same slogan, “It’s the Real Thing”. In this letter, Hebert makes his best attempt to persuade Seaver and the Grove Press to stop the use of the slogan. In response, Seaver makes a letter of his own to act as a rebuttal to the arguments Herbert presented. Although both authors drafted similar letters, Seaver and the Grove Press is

Herbert “believes that you will agree that it is undesirable” for the companies and their own different markets, respectively (8). In order to continue to reinforce his argument, Herbert uses context of the company such as how the slogan was “first used in advertising for Coca-Cola over twenty-seven years ago” (14-15). Herbert ends is letter and therefore his argument making the assumption that he had wrote enough to be able to persuade Seaver and the Grove Press to see it from Coca-Cola’s perspective and comply with Herbert’s

Through the use of seer wit and sarcasm, Seaver mocks and makes fun of the Coca Cola company for believing that “the public might be confused by our use of expression, and mistake a book… for a six pack of Coca-Cola” (4-6). Seaver continues to sever Herbert’s argument by making sarcastic comments such as the Grove Press will have “instructed all our salesmen to notify bookstores that whenever a customer comes in and asks for a copy...to make sure that what the customer wants is the book, rather than a Coke” (7-11). These instances of mockery give off the impression that Seaver is not and will take Herbert or the Coca-Cola company seriously as the entire situation at hand is ridiculous. By repeating lines directly from Herbert’s own letter, Seaver belittles the potency and effectiveness of Herbert’s argument, which in turn gives the upper hand to the Grove Press. Towards the end of Seaver’s letter, he makes a reference to the First Amendment, making it much more difficult for Herbert to battle against the law. In claiming that the Grove Press will “defend to the death”, while simultaneously using a sarcastic tone, Coca-Cola’s right to own the slogan, Seaver gives undertones that he and Grove Press could care less if the Coca-Cola company owned the slogan and will continue to use the