Day 300 - 14 Nov 96 - Page 33


     
     1        the meaning of nutrition, you do not know exactly where the
     2        goalposts are until I have given my judgment, I am afraid.
     3
     4   MR. MORRIS:   If I can say, it probably will not -- I mean, you
     5        know ----
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You have made it absolutely clear.  What you
     8        are setting out, what you say you have established is both
     9        limbs; instigating a request for something undesirable,
    10        however occasional and polite the request on the one hand,
    11        and winding up the child so that it will repeatedly ask,
    12        that is to pester or, to use your word, harass the parent.
    13        You say it is a compounding of the two in this case.
    14
    15   MS. STEEL:   I think it is accepted by McDonald's witnesses as
    16        well.  They might not accept the unhealthy food part, but
    17        they certainly accept the pestering bit.
    18
    19   MR. RAMPTON:   No, we do not accept the pestering bit.  Pester
    20        power is an emotive term used by the enemies of the fast
    21        food industry.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Carry on, but I have never understood them to
    24        accept 'pester'.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:   I have read out I don't know how many quotes where
    27        the Plaintiffs' witnesses are actually agreeing that there
    28        is pester power, that children do pester their parents as a
    29        result of McDonald's ads.  I don't know how they can carry
    30        on denying it.
    31
    32   MR. RAMPTON:   This little bait, if I can call it that, has
    33        become a snake biting its tail.  It is perfectly well and
    34        quite sensibly accepted on this side of the court that the
    35        principal effect of advertising to children is that when
    36        the choice for the family comes, 'which restaurant shall we
    37        go to', it shall be McDonald's rather than somewhere else.
    38        That is number one.
    39
    40        Number two, quite obviously if the children are the people
    41        who receive the advertising, they are going to have an
    42        input into that debate.  Whether you call it pestering or
    43        nagging or whatever, depends on your emotional point of
    44        view.  But a plain, cold fact as a parent, anybody who has
    45        ever lived in the world, the fact is that children ask for
    46        things which they do not have the resources to provide for
    47        themselves.
    48
    49   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You must get on with your submissions.  What
    50        is not accepted is that it amounts to an invitation to
    51        pester.  I will make my decision about that.  But what you
    52        must not do is work on the basis that the witnesses have
    53        accepted pestering.
    54
    55        You may have a very strong case from McDonald's own
    56        publications and witnesses that the idea of advertising is
    57        to get children to request their parents to go to
    58        McDonald's, but there is an issue, and I may have to
    59        resolve it, as to whether it is designed to get them to
    60        pester, to use the word you like using, their parent.

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