Day 025 - 16 Sep 94 - Page 44
1 letter of 24th April, would it not?
2 A. I believe that the three specific allegations were
3 based on primarily claims that were made in the second
4 page of the two page ads, but if you will permit me, let
5 me check that.
6
7 Q. Yes, please do.
8 A. Yes.
9
10 Q. In each case your specific complaint was about some of the
11 material contained in the second page, was it not?
12 A. Yes.
13
14 Q. I would like to you pick up the coloured mock-up thing
15 with "Time" on the front and open the front cover at the
16 page, for you it is probably the left-hand page:
17 "Advertising Breaks Jan. 18th".
18 A. I am there.
19
20 Q. You have got there have you? Page 101, my Lord, at tab
21 33. At the top it says -- we have had this before -- "It
22 is time Americans were told about McDonald's food quality
23 and its nutritional value. This advertising program is
24 designed to get the facts out, and to neutralise the junk
25 food misconceptions about McDonald's good food. This
26 effort represents a long term commitment beginning with a
27 year-long advertising schedule in 1987".
28
29 Can you then go down to the very last paragraph on that
30 page, remembering this appeared in December 1986, we see
31 this: "The ads will first appear in the other consumer
32 magazines in either February or March. The first
33 insertion in each book will be a two-page ad. Future
34 insertions will include the first page only." Do you see
35 that?
36 A. I do.
37
38 Q. It follows from that, as night follows day, does it not,
39 Mr. Gardner, that the removal of those second pages from
40 the published advertisements in American magazines had
41 nothing whatever to do with your intervention?
42 A. No, sir, it does not.
43
44 Q. Why?
45 A. Two reasons: It is not unheard of for companies to
46 misrepresent their plans to their suppliers or to their
47 franchisees, in this case, for a number of reasons.
48 I will not suppose that has happened here but it is a
49 possibility and therefore -----
50
51 Q. Are you going to suggest it as a positive assertion?
52 A. I am just going to suggest because that possibility
53 exists; it does not follow as night follows day.
54 Secondly, plans change. We do not know, this that you are
55 showing me, I do not recall having seen before. Certainly
56 McDonald's did not point that out to us in any of their
57 responses, nor did they provide us with the insertion data
58 for January, February, March or April or subsequent, so
59 that we could determine whether, in fact, that was the
60 truth at the time.
