A Great Example of Rhetoric

While out to dinner with a few friends last week, I came across a great example of rhetoric.  Sitting at our table, with cold drinks all around, and the hot Summer air all around me, I realized I was in bad need of a coaster for my drink. I asked our waitress for one and instead of a generic run of the mill bland coaster, I was brought a coaster with a "Avoid the Stork" website advertisment on it. My first thought about the coaster was total surprise at the thought of putting an advertisement on coaster! The back of the coaster has a stork with flight goggles on (like from old school open air planes) with a huge circular cross-out going through him.  The front is orange and states "It is commonly known that unexpected deliveries have ended many air guitar careers before they have matured to their full potential. Don't put off your pipe dreams avoidthestork.com" 

 The rhetor (the Avoid the Stork campaign) does a great job telling the audience (the individuals using these coasters)  about their website where you can get information about avoiding the stork until they are ready for a child. In their message they offer plenty of humor and a not so tense look at birth control techniques (or at least where you find resources for them).  Although a great message, the constraints faced may be a bit of a hurdle for this rhetorical artifact.  First off, just because you see this coaster does not mean you will go to the website.  Secondly, there is not a big enough surface on the artifact to put down any amplifying information about the website. This space is used instead for a little bit of birth control humor. I felt in the message their was a great deal of Pathos used, because it was catered towards a younger crowd that maybe had no idea what the Avoid the Stork foundation was all about, which brought about the lack of ethos.  The lack of Logos was brought on mainly by the lack of space for any real facts and documentation about birth control. 

  Context and culture pretty much go hand in hand for this rhetorical artifact.  This coaster would not have a very large effect if it were placed in a nursing home or in a childhood daycare.  Instead, it is placed in a Downtown Iowa City bar, where they amount of sexually promiscuous individuals probably outweigh the amount of sexually promiscuous people in a nursing home...well hopefully.

  I am excited to see everyone else's great rhetorical artifacts!