Day 043 - 01 Nov 94 - Page 63


     
     1        A.  Yes.
     2
     3   Q.   As we can see, that letter itself indicates that McDonald's
     4        had gone to outside persons for advice about the content of
     5        the proposed advertisements?
     6        A.  Yes, I think we tried to take overall meticulous care
     7        in the development of this campaign to ensure that lots of
     8        people were talked with.
     9
    10   Q.   I was going to ask you whether you could remember what sort
    11        of outside advice -- I am not asking you what the advice
    12        was -- who you asked about the validity of the
    13        advertisements?
    14        A.  I know that we had people that were nutritionists, we
    15        had people that were doctors, physicians, we had people
    16        that had worked in the public health sector.  Then we had
    17        experts not only inside the company but at the advertising
    18        agency and consultants that we worked with as well.
    19
    20   Q.   Mr. Horwitz told us, I think, that Leo Burnett themselves
    21        have a specialist legal department; is that right?
    22        A.  Yes, they do.
    23
    24   Q.   Can you remember whether you personally had any concerns
    25        about whether the advertisements might be open to criticism
    26        for any reason at all at the time when they were being
    27        prepared?
    28        A.  I was concerned that they would not be open to
    29        criticism, and that is one of the reasons why we took this
    30        kind of care as we possibly could in developing the ads.
    31
    32   Q.   Was there any sense in which a decision was taken to sail
    33        as close to the wind (if that is an American expression) as
    34        you could?
    35        A.  I am not sure what you mean.
    36
    37   Q.   Get as close to the line as you could in point of ----
    38        A.  No, we wanted to be well above the line.  We did not
    39        want to sail close at all.
    40
    41   Q.   In a campaign of this kind, does McDonald's have any
    42        interest in getting close to the line or, indeed, across
    43        it?
    44        A.  No, not at all.  It would be not in our best interests
    45         -- in fact, I think it would be quite debilitating.
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you normally take such wide consultation
    48        before an advertising series?
    49        A.  If it is an issue that may be in question that we may
    50        do that, but this probably was the one that we took the 
    51        most counsel from that I can seem to remember in my few 
    52        years at McDonald's.  But we do ----- 
    53
    54   Q.   That is why I asked the question; what was it, if anything,
    55        which you thought might be an issue or sensitive about
    56        this?
    57        A.  Well, this was a controversial issue as well as that
    58        there were, as far as I was knowledgeable at the time, some
    59        guidelines and federal restrictions on how you can
    60        advertise when you are talking about these kinds of issues.

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