Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 29
1 He said on page 14, line 35, that 25 to 34 year olds with
2 children tended to be more brand loyal and that brand
3 loyalty started through the experience in the restaurant,
4 but in terms of how McDonald's develop that and grow that,
5 it was based on advertising both to adults and to
6 children.
7
8 He said, on day 41, page 49, line 42, that persuading
9 people to eat at McDonald's rather than at home, he said
10 that that was the general goal in terms of improving the
11 frequency of visits to McDonald's, although he claimed that
12 it would be a difficult thing to do, but the fact is that
13 it still remains a general goal. In other words, the
14 company is trying to divert people away from home where
15 they might eat more healthy meals and into the stores to
16 increasingly rely upon high fat, low fibre food such as
17 that sold by McDonald's.
18
19 This was a point I was referring to earlier, and I could
20 not actually find the reference for it at the time. On day
21 42, page 2, line 59, Mr. Hawkes said McDonald's spent £35
22 million on advertising and promotion in 1993, that is UK
23 McDonald's. He said on top of that, restaurants spend more
24 money locally, that about 1 percent of the local store's
25 budget goes to local advertising and promotion, and that 5
26 percent of turnover from local stores went to the national
27 advertising budget. The last part of that was page 3, line
28 37. He agreed on page 59, line 39, that approximately 6
29 percent of turnover through McDonald's restaurants goes on
30 advertising and promotion.
31
32 He said, on page 3, day 42, that the purpose of promotions
33 was to increase the frequency of visits during the period
34 of promotion. So again that is more evidence of McDonald's
35 trying to encourage people to come into their stores more
36 often, despite the assertion or the claim to encourage
37 people to balance their diet. He said that the fast food
38 section of the market is growing as a whole; more people
39 are eating fast food now than they were 20 years ago. That
40 was on page 19, line 12, day 42, as well.
41
42 He said that generally the company did not interview under
43 16 year olds, so they had no idea of the frequency of their
44 visits. That was day 42, page 20, line 19.
45
46 Moving on to the point about whether McDonald's
47 advertisements encourage children to think that McDonald's
48 is part of everyday life and thereby make them feel the odd
49 one out if they are not a part of that, I think that there
50 has been a substantial amount of evidence which shows that
51 that is what McDonald's advertising is designed to do.
52
53 If I just give some examples of that. Some of this ties in
54 with a trip to McDonald's being a fun event. There is
55 quite a bit of overlap really. In fact, probably a fun
56 event and gimmicky stuff and happy meals and so on, I will
57 try and do it all together in this section rather than in
58 the third section, and just concentrate on the third
59 section about pester power.
60
