Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 13
1 Just on that point about the age group, Mr. Hawkes had said
2 that the company did not target 8 to 15 year olds so much
3 because -- well, he said at that age they do not pester
4 their parents to go to McDonald's, it does not work in the
5 same way. I would say that is a clear admission there that
6 they consider advertising to two to eight year olds to be
7 particularly effective because they go and pester their
8 parents to take them to McDonald's.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have references for these?
11
12 MS. STEEL: I have references for some of them. I have got
13 them kind of separate. They are a bit confusing.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you going to give them to me again
16 later?
17
18 MS. STEEL: Yes. We also heard about the fact that it was a
19 tactic of McDonald's to reach families through children and
20 that this was shown, really, by the fact that whenever
21 McDonald's started up in a new region or country, the
22 company would at first advertise exclusively to children.
23 And that included Scotland a few years ago.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He did not say wherever they did. He said
26 that on occasions they did. I mean, it may not much matter
27 to your point.
28
29 MS. STEEL: Well, I mean, I could not say whether or not it was
30 every single time they started in a new region, but it was
31 a clear impression that that was a frequently used tactic,
32 as opposed to just a one-off for Scotland.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
35
36 MS. STEEL: I think it is also referred to elsewhere. I think
37 it might even be in John Love's book.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have that point, anyway.
40
41 MS. STEEL: Right. It seems like all of McDonald's witnesses,
42 when they first got in the witness box, tried to assert
43 that the character ronald mcdonald and the other McDonald's
44 characters, cartoon characters, were not intended to sell
45 food to children, but to promote the McDonald's
46 experience.
47
48 I mean, we could actually take that as an admission in our
49 favour in a lot of ways, because, you know, it is
50 effectively the use of gimmicks to get children to eat the
51 food. Their claim is that they are not -- you know, that
52 they are trying to get the kids to come in for the
53 experience. The reality is, obviously, as we did put to
54 Mr. Hawkes, that they would not be remotely interested in
55 having the children all coming in for the experience if
56 they were not buying the food.
57
58 Now, it could be taken that the fact that they were
59 reluctant to admit that the purpose of those characters was
60 to sell food to children is an admission of the fact that
