Rhetorical Analysis Project: Analyzing BNY Mellon Annual Report 2018

This report presents a rhetorical analysis of an annual report from a financial institution, specifically focusing on the Bank of New York Mellon's 2018 report. The analysis examines the application of ethos, pathos, and logos in the CEO's letter to stakeholders. The report details the context of the annual report, its content, and its significance for stakeholders, including financial statements and the CEO's message. The analysis highlights how the CEO uses trustworthiness (ethos), empathy (pathos), and facts and figures (logos) to communicate with stakeholders, especially when addressing financial performance. The report also references the use of these rhetorical strategies in the context of the decrease in net fees and commission and net interest incomes. The report concludes by summarizing how the CEO effectively uses a combination of logos, ethos, and pathos to disseminate credible information, and impress stakeholders. The report also includes references to supporting materials.

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Rhetorical Analysis project: Annual Report
Annual reports are reports prepared by financial institutions to present to their customers
and stakeholders on the day to day running of the institution. The annual report for the year
ending December 31, 2018, is an annual report prepared by the institution to the stakeholders
detailing the progress of the bank and also stating their objective the next fiscal year. The
contents of the annual report entail among others the message from the Chief executive officer
and a message from the Board of Directors who are the top management of the bank. Emerging
the best financial institution and being featured in Forbes 2018. It’s significant for the
management to state its stakeholders. It’s through these messages and letters to the members
during the annual reports that the management reiterates their commitment to serving at the
pleasure of the stakeholders and under the common interest and wellbeing of the customers.
Additionally, the annual report entails consolidated financial statements that present the financial
transactions of the company during the said period (The bank of New York Mellon, 2018 Pg. 6).
Through these consolidated financial statements, the stakeholders can evaluate the growth rate of
the institutions as compared to the previous year. Despite that, the customers and shareholders
can predict and at various stages know about the approximate value of dividends that they are
going to be paid. This paper seeks to evaluate the ethos, pathos, and logos of the Annual report.
As previously discussed, the content of the document includes financial statements that
are significant to various stakeholders and while discussing its context, annual reports are

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imperative in detailing and setting the objectives for any institution given the previous year's
spending, revenue and profits accrued. Throughout the annual report, the financial institution has
managed to portray the utmost professionalism and honesty in their figures. However, one part of
the report stands out and the most intriguing to addressing in this rhetoric analysis. Throughout
the letter, the Chief Executive Officer has demonstrated the highest level of trustworthiness and
has spoken directly and more concisely (Ghaisas, and Smita, 2017). Compared to other letters
from other banks, the CEO has taken up the task of explaining to the stakeholders the various
strategies that have assisted the financial institution to stand out amongst other institutions.
Unlike other CEOs who are taking advantage of their already existing reputation, the CEO takes
upon the responsibility to explain the issues and the reason for the decrease in net fee and
commission, and in its net interest incomes (The bank of New York Mellon, 2018 Pg. 8). The
CEO also portrays Ethos by recognizing the efforts put by other team players in supporting their
clients and continuing to provide them innovative and long-term solutions within the rewarding
framework of the BNY Mellon Group and considering market developments. This depicts a
leader who can be entrusted to lead any top agency (Oeppen Hill. 2019 Pg 7).
In the opening of the letter, the CEO addresses the stakeholders with a sympathetic tone
one that is seen to at least woe the stakeholders bear with the bank on this year’s progress. By
opening the letter with words that seek empathy from the audience the CEO seeks to calm down
the customers who might be unsatisfied with the report that has been presented as well as the
profit margin (Ting, 2018). These words capitalize on the belief that the customers will bear with
the management given that this was a transition year for The Bank of New York Mellon SA/NV.
This is a good example of the effectiveness of pathos in the rhetoric analysis where the author

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gets to evaluate the positive values and beliefs that the author of the letter seeks to capitalize on
the intended audience (DeGrasse, 2017).
In rhetoric analysis logos refers to the message that is being disseminated by the author of
the letter (Charland, and Glorea, 2017). In the letter, the Chief Executive Officer is aware that
mentioning a decrease in net fee and commission and its net interest incomes would not be
enough for the audience to believe in the message or even subscribe to the information that is
entailed in the report. It’s though this; the CEO adds that the net fee and commission income had
decreased by 3.5 percent in 2018. Noting these figures to back up the previous assertions bring
out the aspect of logos well in this letter additionally, CEO sweetness the deal by indicating that
despite the decreases, through hard work by the employees who managed the investment
portfolio, net interest income in 2018 decreased by only 5.5 percent (The bank of New York
Mellon, 2018 Pg. 8). The statement is a combination of three aspects of rhetoric analysis where
the CEO uses logos to back the statement using facts and figures. The CEO Employs ethos is
disseminating information that is credible by even consolidated financial statements (Grant, and
Arthur,2019). And pathos by telling the stakeholders that despite the hiccups their net income did
not substantially drop which greatly impresses the stakeholders.

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References
Charland, Glorea, et al. "Ethos, pathos and logos—A typology for analyzing tweeting comments
in scholarly articles." iConference 2017 Proceedings (2017).
DeGrasse, Carol. "Rhetorical Analysis Peer-Review Handout." (2017).
Ghaisas, Smita, et al. "Ethos, pathos, and logos to prevent sexual harassment at workplaces: a
regulatory solution based on operant conditioning." 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International
Conference on Software Engineering Companion (ICSE-C). IEEE, 2017.
Grant, Arthur J. "Ethos, Pathos and Logos: Rhetorical Fixes for an Old Problem: Fake News."
InSITE 2019: Informing Science+ IT Education Conferences: Jerusalem. 2019.
Oeppen Hill, Jemma Helen. "Logos, ethos, pathos and the marketing of higher education."
Journal of Marketing for Higher Education (2019): 1-18.
The bank of New York Mellon. Annual Report. The bank of New York Mellon, 2018.
Ting, Su Hie. "Ethos, Logos and Pathos in University Students’ Informal Requests." GEMA
Online® Journal of Language Studies 18.1 (2018).