Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 11
1 The third question is: do McDonald's use advertising and
2 gimmicks which have the effect of making children
3 pressurise their parents into taking them to McDonald's,
4 and are McDonald's aware of that? We would say quite
5 clearly they are aware of that, because -- well, Mr. Hawks
6 for one admitted it in the witness box. He was in charge
7 of McDonald's advertising in this country.
8
9 Then the fourth question is really about the inadequacy of
10 the meals, and I have been through this, but just briefly,
11 that whether or not if the comment was about the meals
12 being bland then that would be a matter of opinion or
13 comment. If it was about the nutritional value of the
14 food, then we have already covered that and proven that
15 through the nutrition section of the case. And if it is
16 about -- well, the same with poisonous, in terms of
17 nutritional value or -- well, no, under terms of poisonous,
18 the degenerative diseases effect which obviously is already
19 covered by the nutrition section of the case and we
20 consider has already been proved; that it is reasonable
21 that if you are running a very real risk of, or if there is
22 a very real risk from that type of diet, that it is fair to
23 say that it could be termed as poisonous in the long term.
24
25 Then, the section about food poisoning, if it refers to
26 food poisoning or if it was taken to refer to food
27 poisoning, that has been covered already in the food
28 poisoning section and admitted incidents admitted by
29 McDonald's in any event.
30
31 So, really we do not particularly need to go into 4, I
32 don't think, because it is covered by other issues.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: For 4, refer to what has been said in
35 relation to nutrition and food poisoning?
36
37 MS. STEEL: Yes. I mean, I might add a few extra bits in terms
38 of what Miss Gibbs said when she was giving evidence, but I
39 will probably stay off that point in the main.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
42
43 MS. STEEL: To just go through some of the general evidence
44 about advertising, before I get into specific parts,
45 (Pause) Just with reference to the fact that in this
46 section of the leaflet it talks about parents feeling
47 pressurised to give in to McDonald's basically because of
48 the gimmickry and advertising, and it talks about people
49 trying to avoid junk food, and just that that refers back
50 really to the section in the nutrition section of the
51 leaflet about fast equals junk where it says that even if
52 they like eating them most people recognise that processed
53 burgers and synthetic chips served up in plastic containers
54 is junk food.
55
56 So, obviously, the paper and plastic containers is part of
57 the gimmickry which we have heard about the design of
58 bright packaging to make it look attractive. Also, that is
59 a description of what people generally would term junk food
60 or, you know, mediocre, or whatever -- low quality.
