Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 14


     
     1        McDonald's set about internationalising themselves.  It is
     2        entitled:  "Exporting Americana".  I draw your attention,
     3        starting from the top, to the third paragraph down:
     4        "McDonald's abroad was doing more than pioneering every
     5        food service to the middle classes".
     6
     7   MR. MORRIS:  Where are we again?
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Second complete paragraph.
    10        A.  Second complete paragraph.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry, read it again.
    13        A.  If I may, I will read the entire paragraph and then
    14        add my comment on to it:  "But McDonald's abroad was doing
    15        more than pioneering every day food service to the middle
    16        classes.  It was attempting to export something that was
    17        now endemic to American life but totally foreign
    18        everywhere else.  Quick service food was uniquely
    19        American.  So were drive-ins and self-service restaurants.
    20        And the food it was exporting was as different as were its
    21        methods of retailing.  Hamburgers, french fries, and milk
    22        shakes were an integral part of American culture, but they
    23        were not mass marketed in most foreign countries.  Indeed,
    24        in Japan and other Far Eastern countries, McDonald's was
    25        faced not only with the task of introducing the hamburger
    26        but with an even more fundamental challenge of
    27        establishing beef as a common food.  All things
    28        considered, the job of going international seemed even
    29        more complicated than diversifying" -- they mention
    30        diversifying because the previous few pages is what the
    31        chief executives of McDonald's have actually been
    32        considering previously.
    33
    34
    35   Q.   You mean, rather than diversifying its product range?
    36        A.  Into different businesses completely, using their
    37        central expertise of property management and so forth.
    38
    39        This is something that I would cite as being really the
    40        beginning of an unethical approach towards marketing,
    41        certainly in this country and McDonald's overseas
    42        operations, because what they are doing here is not
    43        marketing, in fact, in the traditional sense, because, if
    44        you remember, I offered my definition of marketing (which
    45        I think you will find is generally acceptable) as the
    46        process of satisfying needs and wants.  I say "satisfying
    47        needs and wants".  That is really why the whole discipline
    48        of market research has grown up.  It is an industry
    49        essentially that tries to find out exactly what various
    50        consumers and various markets do need and do want.  Of 
    51        course, there is a difference between needs and wants. 
    52 
    53        Now, this is not McDonald's approach at all.  If you see
    54        what McDonald's are actually starting to do here is facing
    55        what is described here as a "fundamental challenge of
    56        establishing beef as a common food".  That is quite
    57        interesting, because they are talking about changing
    58        cultures, changing an entire culture.
    59
    60        I would like to develop the story a little bit on page

Prev Next Index