Christian Iosif

Company Profile: Hype Beast Social is a social media marketing company working
on multiple platforms including instagram, snapchat, and twitter. Considered as one of the most
popular marketing organizations with revenues well into the 6 digit range, HBS has set
modernized standards for the booming market. Their name includes the words “Hype Beast” to
relate to their target audience which are male and female alike, between the ages of 16 and 26
that share interest in a branch of the fashion industry, called “street wear”. The brands marketed
include Gucci, Adidas, Supreme, Nike, Balenciaga, Champion and more. After five years of
leading the market, HBS is looking to expand and to continue being the best social media
marketer.

Staff:
President: Brad Conrad
Vice President: Chad Pad
Public Relations Director: Tina Pina
Brand Recruiting Director: Todd Dodd
Customer Service: ?
Head of External Communication: Lisa Chaffer

External Participants
Inspired Follower: Terry Cruise
Bahn Corp. Head of Foreign Relations: John Doe
Indo Corp. Head of Foreign Relations: Madeline Dye
Christian Iosif

Textual Genre #1: Project Proposal Email

Rhetorical Situation Behind Textual Genre #1:
● Exigence: Staying relevant in social media
● Writer: Chad / Vice President of Hypebeast Social
● Primary/Intended Audience: Brad / President of Hypebeast Social
● Secondary/Peripheral Audience: The rest of their small 10 person company
● Author’s Purpose/Goal: To persuade the president of the company to develop and
implement a better marketing strategy so their company can minimize their risk of
irrelevance in the fashion industry
● Context/Background Info: As the company is growing with an exponential increase in
followers on Instagram, the vice president sees this as an opportunity to expand. Brad, on
the other hand, hasn't been doing anything new other than the usual branding promotional
posts. Chad comes up with a plan that can expand the company to more locations around
the world. New brands have grown in popularity, and they can use their platform as a way to
introduce unknown brands to the world. He wants to introduce these new brands to be able
to monetize their page better and even has a plan to be able to do it in a way that coincides
with human predictability. He's reaching out to Brad about possibilities and wants to know
what he thinks. Chad's essentially imploring Brad to do something so their Instagram page
doesn't fall off the market.

Hey Brad,

It feels like just yesterday that we were only taking pictures of each other in clothes we couldn’t
afford. We’ve accomplished a lot in our past 5 years with Hypebeast Social. I think a lot of hard
work and good timing really helped us out in the end. Instead of taking pictures of our own limited
wardrobe, now we have professional photographers taking pictures of street wear that’s sent to us
for free! All we do now is manage other leaders of departments and we’ve grown so much.

Since we’ve achieved 6 digit numbers in revenue, we’re at the top of the market when it comes to
streetwear marketing. There are other companies that I’ve been looking at recently that are also
growing through instagram too; such as Gucci Gang, These Tings, and The Power . I noticed that
even though they’re posting brands that aren’t that popular, the way the shots are positioned and
their setting in the background is visually astonishing. They have a mix of jungles, pyramids, deserts,
waterfalls, cities, skies, and breathtaking views. I feel like these small differences in their posts
including a couple of others are what makes them distinguishable among the many companies like
us. We’ve done a good job at setting the standard but the standard is about to evolve beyond us
unless we adapt and create too.
Christian Iosif

We took advantage of the first movers strategy but now we need to start thinking about another
strategy.

Our brand is very reputable with the fashion industry. If we reach out to brands with upcoming
popularity, such as Trey Scooter, or Kard Ashian, they will have us showcase their best designs and
we have a strategy that promotes the natural traits of our brain’s habits. While we introduce these
new brands, there might be backlash or lack of interest. We need to write their captions in an
inviting way and emphasize the good we are doing; IE showing that we support small businesses.
On top of that, we need to mix the posts in strategically in between, or even in the same posts as the
popular brands.

Hypebeast Social has been great to us, but we need to take action and be great for the rest of the
company/ that is, if we want this company to continue being great.

Let me know how you feel during dinner tonight,

Chad
Christian Iosif

Textual Genre #2: Mission Statement

Rhetorical Situation Behind Textual Genre #2:
● Exigence: New companies for marketing in social media are appearing and it’s getting
increasingly difficult to compete
● Writer: Tina / Public Relations Director
● Primary/Intended Audience: Followers of HypeBeast Social
● Secondary/Peripheral Audience: Prospective followers / the general public
● Author’s Purpose/Goal: To let followers of other fashion brands know about what
differentiates them from other pages on top of securing their own followers
● Context/Background Info: As the company continues to expand, other companies in the
same market are increasing in popularity and catching up. Other than the usual brand
promotional posts, no plan has been initiated to keep their #1 spot as a streetwear fashion
marketing company. Therefore, the Public Relations Director decided to make a mission
statement to stand above the rest of the competitors

HypeBeast’s Mission Statement

HypeBeast Social was founded to support the belief that people around the globe deserve equal
opportunity to express themselves. As a community dedicated to spreading the ideas of totality and
awareness through innovative technology, we want you to join us on our mission.
Christian Iosif

Textual Genre #3: Employee Termination

Rhetorical Situation Behind Textual Genre #3:
● Exigence: Todd has been caught practicing immoral processes as his role of brand
recruiting director
● Writer: Brad / President
● Primary/Intended Audience: Todd / Brand Recruiting Director
● Secondary/Peripheral Audience: Brand Recruiting Department
● Author’s Purpose/Goal: To fire Todd as a public hanging to show the rest of the company
what happens when the purpose of action for employees have ulterior motives than that of
the company
● Context/Background Info: Todd is in charge of reaching out to different brands to create
affiliations with the marketing company in order to increase sales, views for the page, and
have a wider variety of streetwear brands represented. Todd has conjured companies with no
popular background whatsoever but that paid handsomely for HBS to market for their
brand. Todd has not been performing to the standards that HypeBeast Social has set in its
culture so his work was constantly being double checked. Brad further investigated into
these companies and found out that these companies use child slaves to sew their clothing.
HBS does not want to support such an immoral brand and after investigating even further,
Brad found out that Todd has been receiving extra commission from them every time their
brand is marketed.

Dear Todd,

I’m reaching out to talk to you about the newer brands that have recently joined HypeBeast Social
and let you know what has come to my attention. I am currently away for vacation so I cannot talk
in person, but this situation needs to be addressed in a timely fashion. As part of our new and
growing marketing campaign, we welcome and support most brands that support our cause to
achieve totality and awareness.

At the start of this campaign, we’ve also engaged in yearly quality checks for these brands. During
these checks, we look for their source of materials, how they’re sewn, how they’re designed, and
other general checks that we have here in the states. However, after double checking the origins and
processes of some of these newer brands, specifically Bahn and Indo, some information about their
product procurement has been brought to my attention.
Christian Iosif

Brands such as Bahn and Indo use processes to make their clothing that are not supported here in
the US such as child labor, slavery, and caged animals for their materials. From the beginning, there
was a noticeable difference in payment from these companies to market their brand. Initially we
were hesitant to accept more money from these smaller companies considering their offerings were
higher than the other growing companies we are helping.

After our investigation, we’ve come to realize that the reason why they’re able to spend that much
for marketing is because they save money on labor with child slaves. For their materials, they cage
sheep and alpacas to save space on real estate farmland, which is not the image we are going for.
HypeBeast’s larger companies are hand selected because their labor is mostly US based which brings
jobs to the states and their animals roam free on large acres of farmland. We will not continue to
support these companies and will be reaching out to them to cancel our agreement and remove any
instance of their branding from our social media pages immediately.

Initially after this discovery, I had doubts that you knew about their immoral processes; since our
campaign is relatively new, I figured you just didn’t look into it. After further investigation by
different people, we have found emails showing that you were in personal contact with these
companies. From the emails, it is obvious to us now that you’ve known about this the whole time
and were taking extra commision from them every time we marketed them to our followers. Not
only is our company not supportive of their business processes, but we are also not going to tolerate
your actions. Lawyers have been contacted as your actions have breached our contract with you.

I regret to inform you that HypeBeast Social has finalized the decision to relieve you of your
position at the company. Your employment has been officially terminated effective immediately.
Your office is expected to be empty of all personal belongings within the hour and any act of
defiance may be used against you in court.

Brad Conrad
President and CEO of HypeBeast Social Inc.
brad.conrad@hbs.com | 849. 929. 3726
Christian Iosif

Textual Genre #4: Call to action

Rhetorical Situation Behind Textual Genre #4:
● Exigence: A newer company affiliated with HypeBeast Social has business processes that go
against the culture and values of the social media marketing company
● Writer: Chad / Vice President working with the Public Relations Director / Tina
● Primary/Intended Audience: Heads of Foreign Relations at the Bahn and Indo Brands
● Secondary/Peripheral Audience: Followers and prospective followers of HBS
● Author’s Purpose/Goal: To disaffiliate HBS from these brands
● Context/Background Info: Todd is in charge of reaching out to different brands to create
affiliations with the marketing company in order to increase sales, views for the page, and
have a wider variety of streetwear brands represented. Todd has conjured companies with no
popular background whatsoever but that paid handsomely for HBS to market for their
brand. Brad looked further into these companies and found out that these companies use
child slaves to sew their clothing. HBS does not want to support such an immoral brand and
after investigating even further, Brad found out that Todd has been receiving extra
commission from them every time their brand is marketed and has since gotten fired.
Without a department head for brand recruiting, Chad has been assigned to work together
with Tina in order to break away from such an affiliation. Instead of running the risk of the
public finding out about their past affiliation, they want to make all communication between
the companies ready for the public in order to win back their trust.

Dear Heads of Foreign Relations at the Bahn and Indo Fashion Organizations,

I am the Vice President at HypeBeast Social. We appreciate our new affiliation and invite you to
come to our office in the states to talk in person. We have questions about your processes within the
company and want to make further decisions that may affect our contract. Because of the
importance of this issue, we implore that you contact us as soon as possible to schedule a time and
date to meet.

We look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you.

Chad Rad
Vice President and CFO of HypeBeast Social Inc.
chad.rad@hbs.com | 849. 239. 4059
Christian Iosif

Textual Genre #5: Formal Complaint

Rhetorical Situation Behind Textual Genre #5:
● Exigence: Terry is inspired by the brands posted on the HypeBeast page and has had
multiple attempts to try and have them as a marketer for his personal brand he is trying to
advertise
● Writer: Terry / Inspired follower with a new streetwear brand
● Primary/Intended Audience: HypeBeast Social Customer Service
● Secondary/Peripheral Audience: Terry’s social media followers
● Author’s Purpose/Goal: To formally complain about HypeBeast’s lack of responses to his
claims and explain his reasoning for his, now, lack of interest in the company.
● Context/Background Info: HypeBeast Social has grown so much as a social media
marketing company that they stopped working with smaller brands. They market brands that
pay well for a large audience and the only smaller brands HypeBeast markets were either
acquired or founded by the company. Terry has noticed their initiatives to venture into
smaller brands and has since been inspired to create his own brand. After about half of a
year of solid sales for his streetwear inspired clothing, he has reached out and wants his
personal brand to be brought to their, already established, market. Unfortunately, he has not
received as much as a response after multiple attempts to reach the company.

To whom it may concern,

My name is Terry Cruise and I am one of your original fans of the page. I love what you all are
doing with the page and the venture campaign you have recently started. I too have recently taken a
big step into the fashion industry. My brand, Cruz, is a brand that prides itself on good quality and
streetwear style.

This will be my 5th time reaching out to ask about HypeBeast’s marketing services and,
unfortunately, this will be my last. During these past four months of pushing out different outerwear
styles, now that winter is approaching, I have been contacted by multiple fashion companies that
want me to join them. Instead of trying to start my own personal brand, I will be joining these
established companies that can help me reach the audience I have been looking for.

The reason for my email is to explain why I have no interest in pursuing a company that ignores
potential partners. I hope that for your sake as a company looking to grow, that you reply to this
email to ensure to your fan base that you are a caring and personal company. If a brand reaches out
to you for help, I recommend you respond to them. If you do not have the labor for it, I
recommend you create a department specifically for these sort of requests, for missed opportunities
will become more often for you.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day for reading this email,
Christian Iosif

Best regards,
Terry Cruise
Christian Iosif

Textual Genre #6: Formal Complaint Response

Rhetorical Situation Behind Textual Genre #6:
● Exigence: Terry is inspired by the brands posted on the HypeBeast page and has had
multiple attempts to try and have them as a marketer for his personal brand he is trying to
advertise. After reaching out to the company and complaining, HypeBeast has a reply.
● Writer: Lisa / New Head of External Communication at HypeBeast Social
● Primary/Intended Audience: Terry Cruise / Brand Rep from Social Beast Hype
● Secondary/Peripheral Audience: HypeBeast Social’s other employees
● Author’s Purpose/Goal: To formally reply to Terry and address every issue declared in his
email
● Context/Background Info: HypeBeast Social has started marketing brands that pay well
for a large audience and the only smaller brands HypeBeast markets were either acquired or
founded by the company. Terry, inspired by the brands marketed, with his personal brand
tried creating a partnership with HBS but never received any response. After realizing how
HBS’s culture was not accurately represented with their lack of actions, they wanted to set
the record straight

Dear Mr. Cruise,

It’s a pleasure to be reaching out to you. My name is Lisa, the new Head of External
Communication here at HypeBeast Social, and I wanted to personally thank you for your ambitions
and perseverance that helped create my position here at the company.

Because of your multiple attempts to contact us, my position was created to prevent loss in
prospective potential. We want to create as many opportunities possible for those who believe in
our mission and want those with potential to succeed whether it’s within our community or another.

Your efforts have initialized a new movement towards open communication between companies,
regardless of competition. Our new program will ease the process of recruitment for our new
commutative organization, and the industry will be seeing an exponential increase in prospective
employees.

Speaking on behalf of the company, we are proud to recognize your progression within the industry
and congratulate you. We wish you luck in your endeavors and thank you for being an important
asset to the fashion industry.

Best Regards,

Lisa Chaffer
Head of External Communication
lisa.chaffer@hbs.com | 849. 209. 1923
Christian Iosif
Christian Iosif

Metacognitive Reflection
1. During the first rhetorical situation, my context/background info has a line that says “He
wants to introduce these new brands to be able to monetize their page better and even has a
plan to be able to do it in a way that coincides with human predictability.” Here I am
referring to a practice commonly used by radio stations. The reason why I don’t bring it up
in the email is because the email would be too long and Brad would lose interest halfway
through and that is the type of person he is.

The idea presented is the way stations introduce songs to the public. There was a song made
with an algorithm that, when put through their simulation system, predicted performance
numbers for the song. This song, “Hey Ya”, was meant to break the charts and when it
released, people hated it. They found out, the reason why people hated it is because it was
not familiar and the brain is suited to dislike the unfamiliar. The station would then play it in
between popular songs. Gradually, it would be played more often and eventually it became
the most popular song. When this happened, people subconsciously thought, “Hey I know
this song!”, and they would sing along.

At the start of the email, I brought up the past first to introduce a nostalgic and friendly
greeting so it would create a personal connection. There are no Mr. or Sirs anywhere, not
even an email signature because they’re supposed to be personal and best friends so it’s
more acceptable regardless of their status in the company. Because of the summary of the
past, Chad could force Brad down a similar path of thinking and potentially understand the
true purpose of the email by the end without any misunderstanding. As I showed how much
they’ve grown and where they are in the market, I introduced their competitors and what
they are doing to catch up. This is intended so the company becomes personalized, and
imply that Chad and Brad have the responsibility to take initiative. I brought up the revenue
to show the value of the company and made sure to say that “we” are at the top to show
“our” responsibility. I talked about what the competitors do but didn’t include the whole
proposal for a new strategy to induce interest on the rest of the proposal.

The email ended with a positive note for positive morale; I made sure to make it sound like
Chad is forcing Brad to think about the idea for the dinner he’s being forced into. The
reason why Chad is reaching out to Brad instead of the product management department is
because their team is small. I left the text, “We took advantage of the first movers strategy
but now we need to start thinking about another strategy. ” in its own separate space to
emphasise the goal of his email. I have this as a “statement of purpose”, written in book you
let me use. (Proposal & Reports, p. 200) Similar to the founders of JUUL Labs, a 1 year old
electronic cigarette company, most of the company is overseen by these two and they play
an important role in the future of the company.
Christian Iosif

2. For the second rhetorical genre, I made sure not to talk about what the company actually
does because the reason why big companies have such successful marketing campaigns is
that their beliefs are declared for everyone to see. For example, Apple is the first company in
the world to reach an estimated net worth of 1 trillion. They do not market “quality products
and beautiful design”, they market “innovation”. Hypebeast says “people… deserve equal
opportunity to express themselves”, not “people deserve to wear whatever they want” or
“we market niche stylish clothing”.

During the last century, across the globe there has been striking advancements in equality
and HypeBeast Social wants to be a part of that by announcing that they’re on a journey
striving towards related ideas. Acceptance for equality in gender, racial, sex, sexual-
orientation, and even different social / financial classes has increased starting from the era
World Wars to exponentially increasing because of the internet.

I said “community” because Saxby’s calls their customers “guests”, not customers or even
clients. The reason to do this is to provide a sense of belonging and move away from the
feeling of disconnect between a business and the people in it or the people it serves.
“Totality and awareness” are positive traits that are beneficial and support the goal of “equal
opportunity and expression”. Having the “we want you to join us on our mission” is there as
a motivation and a call to action, similar to Uncle Sam’s recruiting propaganda during the
war.

3. The idea came from a problem that happened with Ikea and their rugs. They are supposed to
have quality checks every year. They put a tag on their rugs that says it was done without
child labor. People found out that their rugs were outsourced and that company used child
labor. The first paragraph is an introductory paragraph that is just meant to ease into the
main problem. Inspiration for this came from my interview with Hai. As a development
manager, he is responsible for bringing bad news to employees. He is also responsible for
properly and effectively communicating with them. It is common for people to feel
personally attacked if they have done something wrong because they become vulnerable and
defensive. One of the ways he has to break bad news to people about their projects, is by
easing into the main problem. Nothing about anybody messing up is brought up whatsoever.
Only the processes of the new campaign were brought up just in case Todd didn’t already
know.

From the beginning I spill the beans about the companies that Todd is supporting because
we need to provide a sense of importance and urgency. Made sure still not to blame Todd
for anything and just state was has been happening in order to present the information as
objectively as possible. Even provided specifics such as “child slaves and caged animals”. I
bring up how our current brands run and how we expect the newer companies to run. I
Christian Iosif

made the last paragraph super straightforward and factual to “not leave any doubt in the
reader’s mind that he is being terminated.”(The book you let me use, Chapter 29, pp. 192)

4. I made sure to address both heads at both companies to just group them together for the
publicity at the end goal. The end goal is to end the affiliation in a diplomatic manner for the
public but to do it in steps just to be thorough. “We appreciate our new affiliation and invite
you to come to our office in the states to talk in person.” Not only does HBS appreciate
their affiliation but they’re taking initiative and inviting them to come to the states. I make
sure to include these strong words to express thoughts clearly, specifically, and dynamically. I
didn’t want to using a lot of adjectives and adverbs. ( Thill and Bovee CH5, pp. 140)The
initial appreciation is just for the public because as a company, HBS has no toleration for
such immorale business processes. Made sure to ask to be contacted as soon as possible to
provide urgency to the situation.

5. The reason why Terry exists as an inspired follower BUT with a new streetwear brand, is
because he represents the young professional that tries to work at their dream job but does
not get the part. So they go elsewhere and find their own way into the business. Soichiro
Honda, the founder of Honda, was turned down for an engineering job by Toyota. I wanted
to start the email with a buffer for the bad news. Introducing what Terry has done from the
beginning helps create a leeway into what he has done himself without them. “My brand…
good quality and streetwear style” emphasizes the sort of customers HypeBeast is potentially
looking for.

Starting off with a sentence that is objective that leads into a sentence that brings in some
bad news shows professionality. Similar to a job rejection “We have taken a look into your
resume and we’re impressed… Although, unfortunately we will not be continuing with your
application”. After that, Terry introduces what has happened for his change of pace and why
he has accepted other options rather than HypeBeast Social. He says “... joining these
established companies that can help me reach the audience I have been looking for”. That
says he has been looking for a way to reach a wider audience but hints that HBS has made a
mistake with not even replying to him.

After the initial buffer and introduction of the issue, a conclusion has been made with the
complaint about a company that doesn’t care about prospective small opportunities. Terry
wants to show HBS that they aren’t the biggest company to where they have to ignore
people, and if they have a legitimate reason, that they have to change and hire more people
or create a department responsible for communication with inquiries. This is the official
complaint and we want it to be last in order to be as professional as possible. The bad news
always goes near the end and “In the close, make sure audience members understand what
to do next and how that action will benefit them” (Thill and Bovee CH 3, pp. 233). It
Christian Iosif

doesn’t have a buffer at the end to make it sound better to leave an emphasis on the mistake
HBS has made.

6. Introduction starts with appreciation to offset the big issue of not responding.
Congratulating Terry also focuses on the positive and that the company is appreciative. “You
can communicate negative news without being negative” (Thill and Bovee CH 5, pp. 130)
Instead of focusing on our lack of responses, I concentrated on his number of emails to
address every issue declared in his email. “Ensure acceptance of the bad news.” (Thill and
Bovee CH 9, pp. 252)HBS, again to offset the bad acts of HBS for not responding to his
emails.I made sure to Referring to his actions as positive and what it has done to the
company and to the industry helps the reader think that they have something beyond them
and that they are changing others without even trying to do so