Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 30


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
     2
     3   MS. STEEL:   On day 41, page 27, line 27, Mr. Hawkes said,
     4        "Between the ages of two to seven we use advertising to
     5        entertain the children.  The advertising itself shows to
     6        them an enjoyment about the characters' relationship with
     7        McDonald's, it makes them feel that McDonald's is a fun,
     8        colourful place to be, that they would like to go."
     9
    10        Again, on page 29, line 40, he said, "With advertisements
    11        to two to eight year-olds we are trying to appeal to that
    12        age group that these characters, and therefore by
    13        implication McDonald's, is a fun place they would wish to
    14        visit."
    15
    16        On day 42, page 20, line 42, Mr. Hawkes said, "Over the
    17        years we have done one or two pieces of research which have
    18        led to an understanding of what children find appealing in
    19        advertising.  In that area, it is very much one of
    20        generally appealing to the fun and excitement and colourful
    21        simple story-line type of approach to children.  This is
    22        one reason why the company uses Ronald and the other
    23        characters.  It is his personality.  They all have
    24        different personalities and characters that children can
    25        relate to."  Clearly the purpose of that is to make the
    26        children want to join in the fun and go to McDonald's and,
    27        if they do not do so, they are going to feel left out.  So
    28        that is a direct example of deliberately trying to do
    29        that.  They have done research to find out what is
    30        appealing to children and then they have chosen to use that
    31        method.
    32
    33        I think it was you made the point -- I don't know how
    34        important this point is -- that of the advertisements that
    35        we were shown, that were disclosed to the court, of the
    36        children's ads showing ronald mcdonald featured in some way
    37        or form in all of them apart from the one called 'Face' and
    38        another one called 'McRobots'.  Day 41, line 20, line
    39        page 20.
    40
    41        On day 41, page 32, line 38, Mr. Hawkes said that Ronald
    42        has been around in the UK since the company started here,
    43        that he is still a useful sales tool, a strong marketing
    44        tool, and that for that reason it was McDonald's intention
    45        to go on using him on television and for personal
    46        appearances.
    47
    48        On day 41, page 54, line 22, Mr. Hawkes said that Ronald
    49        McDonald stands for the fun, the colour, the magic, the
    50        spokesperson to children that McDonald's represents.  He is
    51        a magical clown who has a good sense of humour and just
    52        represents the good fun experience of McDonald's.  He said
    53        that the idea behind using characters which are food
    54        products at McDonald's, i.e. the Fry Guys and various other
    55        characters, was to associate the two things, that the
    56        purpose was to encourage the association by the child and
    57        therefore the child would want to visit McDonald's.
    58
    59        There was a reference on day 42, page 62, line 34, to a
    60        quote about Ronald from the operations manual which said

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