Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 34
1 fun experience when they come. That is on page 29, line
2 19. The purpose of having four different toys is to
3 encourage frequency of visits; it was a different one each
4 week. Which is a clear example of McDonald's using
5 gimmicks to get children to visit the stores more often.
6
7 On day 41, page 26, line 59, Mr. Hawkes said about the
8 absence of menu items from children's advertisements which
9 he had asserted was the case, although we later saw that in
10 fact there were actually quite a lot of menu items in the
11 advertisements, it was just that they were dressed up in a
12 cartoon type style, rather than being, you know, a
13 photographic image of the menu items, and he said that in
14 the area of advertising to children, we do not really sell
15 in a direct way, we do not therefore show too much of the
16 relationship between the characters and the food and the
17 selling of food, although you would see smaller food
18 items.
19
20 And if the company is not showing or is deliberately trying
21 not to show a photographic depiction of the food, then that
22 can only be because they are trying to deceive children
23 into going to the stores to get -- I mean, the point is
24 that they are trying to encourage children to come to the
25 stores by use of things other than the product which is
26 what they are actually trying to sell.
27
28 Usually it is by use of the characters, which, whilst they
29 are depictions of the food items, the purpose of the -- or
30 the picture being created in the mind of the child is not
31 one of going there to eat the food, it is of going there to
32 play with the food, play with the characters.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Where do you get that from?
35
36 MS. STEEL: What from?
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Did he actually say that?
39
40 MS. STEEL: Who? No, that was my comment at the end of it.
41 Because if you have got all these dancing fry cartons and
42 we saw dancing shakes and so on ----
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is not to say that children are not
45 looking forward to actually eating McDonald's food because
46 they find it tasty, is it?
47
48 MS. STEEL: Well, it is to say that what is being pushed at the
49 children is the image of having a fun time with all these
50 cartoon food characters rather than eating the food
51 itself.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I agree that is what may be being pushed in
54 the advertising, but the fact is that the children may well
55 like McDonald's for the experience, but, for better or
56 worse, they also like the taste of its food and drinks, do
57 they not?
58
59 MS. STEEL: Actually, if you speak to any number of parents who
60 take their children to McDonald's for the Happy Meals, they
