Memorandum

Date: February 2, 2016

To: Lehua Ledbetter
From: Kara DeLorenzo
Subject: Rhetorical Analysis of Venmo

Just Venmo me! Venmo is used as an application to easily

wire money instantly into bank accounts of friends or family
members. I constantly use venmo to pay my friends because
especially during your college years, its hard to carry cash
on you all of the time. Venmo has made it easy to pay back
family and friends instantly. Venmo is set up like a social
media site where you can view who is paying who for what.
You can even like or comment on payments. Venmo is
hooked up to your Facebook account, phone number or even
email.

Overview
-

Audience
Context
Purpose
Direct Use of
Rhetorical skills
-Ethos
-Pathos
-Logos

Audience
Venmo mostly targets users that are ages 12-24. This age
group is commonly referred to as Millennials. According to a
recent study 20% of Millennials havent made a cash
payment in the past 30 days. It incorporates banking with a

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touch of social media, which makes it more appealing to a

younger generation. Incorporating social media into Venmo
makes it less uncomfortable paying back debt to your
friends.

Context
Venmo makes it easy to send or receive money in the least
uncomfortable way possible. It is very beneficial when a
large group of people need to pay a person back. For
example, my sorority constantly uses it. When our sorority
has an event to pay for we all Venmo the Treasurer the
money that we owe her. It makes it easier to keep track of
who paid and who didnt. By utilizing venmo we can all pay
the chair back before chapter ends whereas if we didnt have
cash on us at the moment, it could take much longer.

Purpose
Venmo prevents the discomfort of when a
friend puts off paying you back because
they dont have cash on them. A situation
like this could drag on for weeks and
potentially be forgotten about to only
increase the frustration of not being paid
back. By utilizing venmo, it prevents users
from the discomfort of their friends owing
them money because it can be done
instantly through their phone.

Direct Use of Rhetorical skills

Ethos
The website has a white background with simple graphics
and text. The website gives off a similar feel that apple does.
It is trying to promote that it is a banking app of the future
but it is also a reliable and respectable company. All of your
personal financial information is stored on secure servers.
The information is encrypted and stored. There is a privacy

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policy that explains fully in detail where all of the information

that is collected goes.

Pathos
There are fun interview questions that they asked some of
the employees of venmo. This makes the app appear more
likeable because you are meeting the people behind it. By
getting to know the employees and interns through these
interview questions, it builds a trust because you see the
people behind the business. Venmo recently paired up with a
nonprofit Friends of Rockaway a nonprofit dedicated to
rebuilding homes for Hurricane Sandy survivors. A company
that is getting involved with a nonprofit
makes you trust them more because they
are trying to better the community.

Logos
Venmo
doesnt
charge
you
for
transactions, which you are often charged
for through your bank. PayPal a commonly
known banking site charges 3% per
transaction. It is an easy, free and quick
way to transfer money.

Conclusion
Venmo is a very useful application that
draws in users in many ways to utilize the
application. The application reminds the users of social
media sites such as Facebook and Twitter because of the
blue scheme that is used. As well as the website resembles
Apples website. This helps establish a trust between venmo
and the user because it if it resembles real websites then it
must be legitimate. When it comes to money, we need to
feel comfortable with the application. Venmo does a good job
establishing itself as a safe place to transfer money to
friends.

Work Cited
Dallett, Lydia. "Here's Why Mobile Payments App Venmo Is

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Crushing The Competition Among College-Age Users."

Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 09
Feb. 2016.
"Venmo." .com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.