This hard-hitting Covid-19 vaccine advertisement caught the attention of many Charlotteans as well as an expansive online audience. Sunday, September 19th a truck displaying the words “Don’t get vaccinated” drove around Charlotte, NC during the Carolina Panthers football game. Upon seeing this abnormal slogan, the audience was drawn to the advertiser, a faux company by the name of Wilmore funeral home. A rhetorical situation such as this appeals to the audience’s emotions in attempts to persuade them to get vaccinated.

The faux funeral home website: www.wilmorefuneralhome.com consists of eleven words and one link in the center with the words “Get vaccinated now. If not, see you soon” painted in white across the black screen. Upon clicking the text in the center, the viewer is directed to the StarMed website, an urgent care facility in Charlotte that administers the Covid-19 vaccine. Many well known websites including People magazine, the Washington Post, and USA Today, wrote about this ad campaign using a shock factor and a bit of dark humor to grab the attention of their audience.  The ad campaign director, David Oakley feels that “conventional advertising is not working [and] regular messages … just kind of blend in” (Ebrahimji). So Oakley decided to use “a different perspective [one that] kind of shocks people into thinking, ‘Holy moly, man.’” (Ebrahimji).

Lloyd F. Bitzer describes a rhetorical situation as “a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance” (4). Rhetorical situations are ones that expect a reaction or change from their audience. This audience, according to Bitzer, “consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change” (7). The audience only includes those who can be influenced by the rhetoric. Bitzer declares exigence as “any imperfection marked by urgency” and specifies that rhetorical exigence must be modifiable (6). And according to Bitzer, the constraints on this rhetoric are “made up of persons, events, objects, and relations which are part of the situation” (8). These constraints could consist of beliefs, traditions, cultures, documents, or motives, and “have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence” (8). Constraints serve as influences on the way the audience reacts to the exigence. 

The audience for this campaign is both the vaccinated and unvaccinated people of Charlotte. However, both parts of this audience can react in different ways. The unvaccinated people can be impacted by this harsh reality, and choose to get vaccinated or not. The vaccinated people, like many did, can repost an image of this truck on social media. This would spread awareness in unvaccinated Covid-19 death statistics, in an attempt to get those unvaccinated to consider vaccinating themselves or their children.

One form of exigence in this rhetorical situation is the vaccination status of the audience. This aligns with Bitzer’s definition of exigence because it is modifiable. If one member of the audience decides to get vaccinated, this exigence has changed. David Oakley expressed that the whole campaign will be worthwhile even if just one person decides to get vaccinated as a result (Ebrahimji). 

Another form of exigence in this situation is the rate at which people are dying of Covid-19. And despite the efforts being put to end this virus, the “current epidemic trends still remain relatively high levels in the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19” (Wang). This statistic, and more specifically the rate at which unvaccinated people are dying, are forms of exigence because the rhetorical situation is ultimately trying to change this. As of September, 2021 “Unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are fully vaccinated” (Romo). This suits the exigence definition as put by Bitzer because if unvaccinated people understand their odds against Covid they may reconsider getting the vaccine. Some people refuse to get the vaccine because they think that they are healthy enough to survive even if they got Covid. But maybe this bold attempt for attention will at least make some who are weary of vaccination, look into it a bit further. In addition to decreased mortality rates, fully vaccinated people are also five times less likely to get infected with Covid (Romo).

The vaccination status in Charlotte is also an example of exigence. This can affect whether people choose to get vaccinated. If everyone they know has been vaccinated, it may make them more inclined to get vaccinated themselves. However, if the people around them haven’t gotten vaccinated, they may be less inclined to get vaccinated. This advertisement was created in an attempt to convince the people of Charlotte to get vaccinated, because the vaccination numbers in North Carolina are lower than the country’s average with “roughly 48.8% of residents … fully vaccinated” (Ebrahimji). 

A constraint of this situation is past experiences with both Covid-19 and with vaccinations. Usually when someone has been severely impacted by Covid, their friends and family are more likely to get vaccinated because they see the first hand impacts. This makes an advertisement about Covid mortality rates more effective for people in that category. If someone has had a bad experience with a past vaccination, they may be less likely to get the Covid vaccine, even despite the statistics. These are constraints because they have the power to constrain the audiences’ decisions.

Another constraint is the audiences’ trust in the government and in science. The audience’s trust in the government constrains their decision in whether or not to get the vaccine. If some people fully trust the government, they may be less hesitant to get vaccinated. And people who don’t like the president or the government may not have faith in the vaccine or trust the statistics that are being advertised. Same goes for science. Even despite the CDC guidelines, Covid protocols, and case statistics, if the audience has a lack of trust in the government, they might either not trust the vaccine content or the numbers of either Covid cases/deaths. 

Another constraint is the Covid-based laws in each area and the longing for normalcy. More businesses opening up and life “returning to normal” is a very common goal regardless of personal beliefs on vaccinations. If events like concerts for example, require vaccination prior to entry, people may be more likely to vaccinate. This applies for other businesses as well. If your favorite restaurant cuts capacity in half and now you can’t even get a reservation, or the football games you love going to now can’t have an audience, this may make you rethink your vaccination decision for no other reason than to get life back to normal. This longing for normalcy is something that is very common and can constrain someone’s decision to get vaccinated.

Another constraint is the awareness of the influx of people to funeral homes. This constraint is a motive of vaccination. This campaign allows people to recognize something they may not have thought about before. Funeral homes across the country have had to deal with the repercussions of the unvaccinated’s choice. They have to truck away corpses from hospitals and cremate or bury them. Funeral Director Patrick Kearns says that death rate is just too high and that “there’s no way [they] can bury or cremate them fast enough” (Fueler). This harsh reality, one that is shocking and terrifying, has not often been shared. Using a funeral home as the method of communicating this message is a powerful and unique way to reach their audience. People working in funeral homes are aware of this increase as well as people who have lost someone during this time. But this campaign seeks out those who have yet to think about this possible “side effect” of vaccination or lack thereof. This awareness can impact someone’s decision to get vaccinated by offering this perspective shift.

This rhetorical situation in the form of a harsh vaccination campaign in Charlotte, NC has people double-taking. In an attempt to avoid blending in with typical vaccine campaigns, ad campaign director David Oakley put together this faux funeral home advertisement telling people not to get vaccinated, this implying that doing so would lead to death, which would be good for their business. This dark humor is effective because it makes people think more deeply about the repercussions of not getting vaccinated. And although inevitably some will find this as an offensive or cheap attempt at promoting vaccination, I think this will challenge the ideas of the unvaccinated and make them think at least a bit more about their choice. This risky Covid-19 campaign is one Bitzer would define as a rhetorical situation because it attempts to convince the audience to get vaccinated by appealing to their emotions.