Persuasive Content with Data: Writing

Olivia Burd

Style and Rhetoric

Prof. Sanchez

March 16, 2025

Persuasive Content with Data: Employee E-Newsletter

MNO: Pepsi Co.

Persuasive Content Example (link)

Formal

This month, PepsiCo. is implementing a new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative to ensure that Pepsico. does a better job of protecting the environment. The goal of the CSR is to limit the amount of single-use plastic that we are creating each year and practice other ways to ensure the company is protecting the environment. The information on the impact of single use plastic comes from an Oceana press release.

In 2022, after trying to lower the amount of plastic used, PepsiCo. increased its plastic use by over 220 million pounds. That is a four percent increase from the amount that was used in 2021. After this increase, PepsiCo. is asking that employees find ways to give back to the environment. As Pepsi works to decrease their plastic use, they are hoping employees will do the same while also making a difference outside of the office.

Common ways for employees to be part of the initiative to protect the environment are to participate in local clean ups, remove invasive species from local ecosystems, and invest in as well as use renewable energy. Through company policies to limit plastic use, and personal environmentally friendly choices, PepsiCo. can make a positive impact on the environment.

After the devastating increase in plastic, Pepsi has pledged to make a positive change this year and in the coming years. The company has since become aware that increasing the use of refillable bottles by just ten percent could reduce plastic bottle pollution by twenty-two percent. An increase of reusable bottles would also stop 7.6 billion plastic bottles from entering the ocean each year. This information is being shared to encourage Pepsi employee’s to be aware of and eliminate their single-use plastic usage as the entire company does the same.

This may seem daunting and overwhelming, but it is all possible. Many other countries have found ways to make this work and greatly reduce the amount of single use plastic. Many countries have also banned the use of plastic. Taking steps, as the Pepsi company is asking its employee’s do, to preserve the environment through this new CSR initiative will create a large impact.

Informal

Hello PepsiCo. Employees!

I hope this finds you well. It’s time that we begin introducing our new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. We hope that through the information shared in this newsletter that you will be inspired to donate, support, fundraise and participate in our CSR to protect the environment. Together, with the implementation of this new CSR initiative, we can lower the amount of single-use plastic and the effects it has on the environment as explained in this Oceana press release.

After an accidental 4% increase in plastic use recently, it’s more important now than ever to lower these rates. Just in the year 2022, PepsiCo. created 2.6 million metric tons of plastic. This all comes after PepsiCo. stated that they were working to lower the amount of plastic they use in their packaging. The company didn’t change any of their practices or adjust the CSR initiatives in order to be more environmentally friendly. Now that we are adjusting our CSR initiatives we hope that you will join us in trying to make a positive impact.

Implementing a CSR works to make a company more environmentally safe. There are many unique ways to get involved and make a difference within our initiative. Besides the obvious decrease in plastic use to protect the environment, you can donate to other organizations that work to protect the environment, spend time volunteering to clean up trash, and more. Though none of these directly relate to Pepsi, we do encourage you all to take measures for the overall improvement of the environment. Just as the Pepsi company is pledging to do, we hope that you all, as our employees, will also.

Together, if we can increase reusable bottle usage by just 10% we could reduce plastic bottle pollution by 22% in our oceans. Let’s use this information and Pepsi’s new CSR initiative as our motivation to be more aware of how our plastic usage is affecting our environment. Little by little we can make such a difference.

Reflection

There are a couple considerations I made in terms of creating a clear difference between the informal and formal e-newsletter. I wanted to share the same information in both, therefore making the target audience the same. I structured these in a way to just be for PepsiCo employees in general. My goal was for the informal version to feel more casual and conversational whereas I wanted the formal version to feel more business oriented and serious.

In the formal version I stayed away from all first and second person pronouns as that made it feel more personal. For example, in the example rather than saying “you” the writer says “the consumers” (Baxter, 2023). This allows the writing to feel more professional rather than personal. On the other hand, in the informal version, I worked hard to make sure that I used pronouns that created a relationship between myself and the audience. I used “we” and “you” throughout the newsletter to make it feel more conversational.

Though I did not use many contractions at all, I made sure that they were only used in the informal version. In my opinion, one of the easiest ways to tell if a piece of writing is formal or informal, is the use of contractions. Much like the author of the example I chose where she chooses to say “the annual progress report does not include annual increases” (Baxter, 2023) rather than saying “the progress report doesn’t”. Though this is a small change, it was something that I wanted to emulate in my writing.

In order to make my writing persuasive I included the quotes from the example I used that shared statistics. The statistics are what will make my reader feel more inclined to participate in the CSR initiative. The way that Baxter was able to seamlessly integrate statistics in her writing inspired me to do the same in mine. She was straight to the point and laid it all out for her readers, like in this example “The companies have pledged to increase the volume of beverages they sell in reusable packaging by roughly 10-percentage points by 2030” (Baxter, 2023). My goal was to be more straight to the point in the formal version, whereas in the informal version I could “beat around the bush” more.

Reference:

Baxter, A. (2025, March 11). Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s plastic packaging use increases by hundreds of millions of pounds. Oceana. https://oceana.org/press-releases/oceana-coca-cola-and-pepsis-plastic-packaging-use-increases-by-hundreds-of-millions-of-pounds/