Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 23
1 some of the advertising which they claim is directed at
2 adults is clearly directed at children, as well, at
3 minimum.
4
5 Mr. Hawks was not in a position to explain the total media
6 expenditure figures. He actually said that he had not
7 prepared them, that they had been prepared by the
8 advertising agency. So the evidence that he had to give in
9 relation to them was all basically hearsay, and the only
10 evidence that we are left with is the charts which show
11 that there are far more weeks of advertising directed at
12 children in any year in virtually all the regions than
13 there are directed at adults. Sorry, I have got a bit off
14 the point there.
15
16 Mr. Hawks also said that he did not think that there was
17 anything wrong with only advertising to children and that
18 he would not be offended if somebody said that McDonald's
19 did only advertise to children. Day 48, page 9, line 60.
20 He said that in new areas they only advertised to children,
21 and he said about that, "one of the tactics is to reach
22 families through children". So that was one of the obvious
23 reasons for only advertising to children in new areas,
24 although he did claim that a lot of that air time would
25 also be seen by a parent so it would begin to help to
26 position McDonald's. That was day 4, line 10 page 10, line
27 12.
28
29 On day 28, page 10, line 60 he said that if there was a new
30 market, a whole new region, which had not previously
31 received any advertising then the company would introduce
32 the ronald mcdonald character prior to everything else. And
33 he said, "Typically, to give you an example, when we came
34 to the UK the first TV advertising was Ronald".
35
36 It is quite clear from all these statements that the
37 company does rely heavily on advertising to children, and
38 that certainly they do consider it to be a very useful
39 tactic to aim advertising solely at children to get the
40 whole thing moving. He said on page 11, day 48, that they
41 would start off aiming mostly at children to get the
42 company known, but then gradually but quickly shift towards
43 more and more adult advertising. It was unclear what he
44 meant by 'quickly shift', but I think if you look at the
45 1987 and 1988 figures for the Border and Scotland region it
46 is clear this it was well over a year that it took before
47 they started having anything like the number of
48 advertisements to adults as they had to children. And that
49 was in 1989, the figures were 41 weeks advertising to
50 children as against 33 to adults, and Grampian it was 43 to
51 children as against 18 to adults. So there is still a big
52 difference there.
53
54 Other matters to take into consideration about the
55 company's advertising spend on children is that on day 48,
56 page 9, line 6, Mr. Hawkes said that the figures did not
57 include ronald mcdonald appearances and that -- and this
58 was on page 13 from line 34 onwards -- an advert during
59 Coronation Street with the London region would cost about
60 £30,000 for 30 seconds whereas an advert during children's
