Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 36
1
2 Q. The action they decided was to move ahead as appropriate.
3 Point (4) is the important point: "Initial Position - We
4 all seemed to agree that, if possible, McDonald's should
5 attempt to deflect the basic negative thrust of our
6 critics by creating a scenario where we take the high
7 road. How do we do this? By talking 'moderation and
8 balance'. We can't -- at this stage of the situation --
9 really address or defend nutrition. We don't sell
10 nutrition and people don't come to McDonald's for
11 nutrition. Rather than fight a defensive war of attrition
12 by responding to constant nutrition attacks, let's not
13 even deal with it. Rather, as you suggest, let's try to
14 develop a broad umbrella position where we incorporate the
15 following points."
16
17 Let me just read the points out for clarification:
18 "(a) McDonald's is not suggesting all meals or even a
19 majority of meals be of the quick service variety.
20
21 (b) McDonald's does strongly suggest (and 80 million
22 people a day support us) that there is a time and a place
23 for one or more quick-service meals or snacks a week
24 within almost everyone's weekly meal schedule. This can
25 be anything from breakfast to a Big Mac, Coke and fries to
26 a late-night snack.
27 (c) We're concerned about nutrition, health, diet, etc.
28 and that is why we talk balance and moderation". I do not
29 want to read the rest of this. The next point is salads.
30 There is nothing sneaky about it; it is just that it is
31 taking a long time to read the entire thing out; the point
32 being the position they talked about there, about not
33 addressing or defending nutrition but talking balance and
34 moderation, in the light of having seen this memo, do you
35 feel that it puts their subsequent advertising campaign in
36 some kind of context?
37 A. I think it serves as further support for the
38 conclusion set forth in the April 24, 1987 letter signed
39 by Attorney General Mattox that says that McDonald's
40 intent was to deceive customers into believing the
41 opposite from what we had concluded. In other words, that
42 McDonald's intent was to make consumers believe that
43 McDonald's food was as a whole nutritious.
44
45 The way that it gives that support is that it shows that
46 McDonald's had knowledge to the opposite, that the
47 consumers believed that McDonald's food was not
48 nutritious. This statement by their agent here to the
49 effect that they cannot depend or address nutrition tells
50 me that they could not do so because they did not overall
51 have products that were nutritious.
52
53 Knowing this, McDonald's still went ahead with the
54 campaign that then resulted in our April 24, 1987 letter
55 to McDonald's, and gives further support for our
56 conclusion in that letter that they did make the claims in
57 the advertising intentional.
58
59 Q. This memo is 17th March 1986. It was the previous year.
60 It was before, in fact, they produced the national
