Day 044 - 02 Nov 94 - Page 67
1 him the experience of skating.
2
3 Q. Do friends usually promote multi-international corporations
4 and sell their products?
5 A. I am not sure how can I react to that.
6
7 Q. Sorry, did I give a number for that? That was 56, Happy
8 Holiday.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I thought that was No. 12.
11
12 MR. MORRIS: Yes, I think it is probably the same ad. This
13 "Wishes", No. 63. What advantage is it to McDonald's to
14 link ronald mcdonald and McDonald's with Christmas in the
15 eyes of children, in the minds of children?
16 A. I am not sure what you mean by "linking it with
17 Christmas". At Christmas-time we sponsor, as we have
18 showed, some specials, but he relates to children all year,
19 not just at Christmas-time. In that particular
20 advertisement it was part of a show, the wish that made
21 Christmas.
22
23 Q. Has not ronald mcdonald always from the beginning -- we can
24 go into that a bit later on -- had an association with
25 Christmas specifically?
26 A. The holiday. He certainly has an association with the
27 holiday time period as well as other time periods or
28 holidays throughout the calendar.
29
30 Q. Have you not though, specifically, put effort into
31 associating ronald mcdonald with Christmas and, of course,
32 the whole thing about presents for children, all that kind
33 of stuff?
34 A. He is associated with the holiday time period, yes.
35 Christmas, specifically, he is usually not associated
36 with. He is associated with the holiday time period
37 because there are many different religions and so forth of
38 people who come to us, but during the holiday time period
39 he is associated with the holiday as well as other holidays
40 during the year, like we showed with Halloween. It is a
41 topical time in a child's life.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You are associating with him with highlights
44 in any child's year?
45 A. That is right. It is a topical time in any child's
46 life and he is associated with this.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: Now these wishes series which I think are numbers
49 63 to about 67, 68. There is some powerful story,
50 traditional story, and there is ronald mcdonald introducing
51 it?
52 A. Yes, as well as -- the story itself was produced by,
53 I think I said yesterday, he Children's Television
54 Workshop. These were bits of Ronald presence that started
55 the programme. Then at different times in the programme
56 before they went to a break, and then at the end of the
57 programme. So Ronald was surrounding the programme content
58 itself.
59
60 Q. I did not remember, was it Ronald's voice that told the
