Day 257 - 06 Jun 96 - Page 50
1 A. To clarify, I would say that probably the role of
2 advertising is to "encourage". The role of the restaurant
3 expansion is to "enable". So, in the advertising context,
4 probably "encourage" was the correct word.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I see.
7
8 MS. STEEL: But in terms of if somebody lives near enough to a
9 store to be able to go there on a fairly regular basis, it
10 is not going to make any difference to them whether or not
11 you build another store, is it? I mean, they are quite
12 capable of going there. It would be the advertising to
13 encourage them to go there more often?
14 A. Yes, there is no doubt that advertising -- that is the
15 role of advertising and we would want to encourage people
16 to visit our restaurants more often.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is what you said any more than this? The
19 advertising is to encourage people to go to McDonald's,
20 whether to go to McDonald's generally or just to go there
21 if they have an impulse to have a burger, to go there
22 rather than to Burger King. The expansion is to do your
23 best to make sure there is a McDonald's near at hand when
24 they feel this impulse?
25 A. That is correct, yes.
26
27 MS. STEEL: Can I just ask you a fairly probably simple
28 question, on page 6 of the same tab (AF2 this is), why are
29 you interested to know if people visited because of the
30 influence of children?
31 A. Because a family eating experience or a family
32 restaurant is our core positioning in international
33 markets. It is our key competitive advantage.
34
35 Q. Basically, you want to know this information so that you
36 can attract more children and thus attract their parents as
37 well?
38 A. That -- certainly children are part of the decision
39 making process; yes, children provide part of the decision
40 making process. We know we are doing our job if we are
41 seen in a good light as a place that children rate or
42 parents rate as a good place for families or a good place
43 for children, because we deliberately aim to position
44 ourselves as a family eating experience in the advertising,
45 and we deliberately aim to execute that in terms of family
46 eating experience in the restaurant. So it is very much
47 part of what we are about.
48
49 Q. But the aim being to get more children to come in and thus
50 bringing in their parents. There is not a problem with
51 that, is there?
52 A. No, the aim being to get more families to visit and,
53 therefore, increase the sales we get per visit.
54
55 Q. Right. If we go to AF4.
56 A. Yes.
57
58 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, just before we pass over AF3 second page, or
59 indeed even the first page, when we were talking about
60 average number of visits being 19 to 30, say, per year?
