Day 042 - 31 Oct 94 - Page 31
1 advertisements, and how strictly do -- I will do one at a
2 time. How strictly do McDonald's enforce their own
3 guidelines on advertising?
4 A. As strongly as we can. They are the guidelines.
5 I mean, nine times out of ten, 99 times out of a 100, our
6 guidelines will be the ones we go to. The BACC will pick
7 up the guidelines to the letter and always implement it on
8 our commercials.
9
10 Q. They always do?
11 A. They give approval. They give approval for all the ads
12 to go on air.
13
14 Q. They would always pick up on anything that did not meet
15 with their-----
16 A. Well, they are human, but they put a stamp on to their
17 advertising to say, "Yes, it is okay to go on air", so we
18 have to assume that they do a pretty good job.
19
20 Q. What about McDonald's, if you do not meet with your own
21 guidelines, you know?
22 A. The one instance I can think of where we might say that
23 -- for instance, you mentioned, my Lord, the fries box
24 which was on the balloon. That fries box is something,
25 because of the identification of it, we may put into some
26 of our children's advertising -- because you can see the
27 logo on there -- rather than a smaller product. But that
28 would be the sort of only time I can think of where we have
29 ever even considered going against the guidelines. Our
30 guidelines are there because we want to adhere to them.
31
32 MS. STEEL: But do you always adhere to them?
33 A. Yes. Wherever we can, we do.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have obviously seen a number of videos
36 and other promotional material. If, in fact, are you
37 suggesting that they do not always adhere to their
38 guidelines, then I suggest you put an example of where they
39 have not done. Otherwise, the answer of the witness does
40 not surprise me. But if he is wrong, you put an example of
41 that to him.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: That last advert, I got the impression -- and I am
44 sure a young child would think -- that those noises were
45 real car noises?
46 A. I would not think so. If you listen to them you can
47 hear that. The fact remains that we comply----
48
49 MR. MORRIS: I understand it was complying-----
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let him finish his answer.
52
53 THE WITNESS: All I can say is that we are asked to comply with
54 certain regulations, which say that you should not mislead
55 children with an offer such as this. That works in numbers
56 of ways: it works to do with the size of the product, and
57 normally, typically, we will put something in there like
58 the hand of a child, or even the product itself gives you
59 an idea as to what the relative sizes of the product are.
60 You must not claim that it can make noises that it cannot
