Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 12
1
2 Mr. Hawkes. Well, we heard firstly that in 1993 McDonald's
3 worldwide expenditure for advertising and promotions
4 totalled 1.4 billion dollars, which is about six percent of
5 sales; that 870 million dollars was spent annually in the
6 USA alone; that McDonald's UK spent approximately 35
7 million pounds per year on advertising. Those figures have
8 gone up now, because it is 1.8 billion dollars per year, or
9 1.8 billion dollars advertising and promotion spent for
10 1995, and it is clear that McDonald's are bombarding the
11 public, both children and adults, with a huge amount of
12 advertising.
13
14 I cannot remember who specifically referred to this, but we
15 did see some figures that McDonald's were vying with
16 Coca-Cola for the two top positions of the most advertised
17 brand in the world. Sometimes McDonald's were coming
18 first, sometimes Coca-Cola were coming first. So I think
19 that this whole section of the case has to be taken in that
20 context of the massive amount that they spend overall on
21 advertising.
22
23 Mr. Hawkes, who was McDonald's UK chief marketing officer,
24 said that the purpose of advertising was communication and
25 persuasion in order to foster brand awareness and loyalty
26 in order to increase sales, and he said you have to keep
27 the name in front of people's mind and without advertising
28 you might see the company decline completely, which is what
29 I was referring to before.
30
31 It is clear that this relates to adults as well as children
32 -- rather to children as well as adults, that it is all
33 about persuading people to buy something which they would
34 not otherwise buy. That is the effect of the admission
35 that without advertising you might see the company decline
36 completely. If the products that McDonald's were selling
37 were so good and so necessary to people, then they would
38 not need to advertise. The reality is that the company is
39 based entirely on hype and, effectively, brainwashing. I
40 mean, the quote that you have to keep your name in the
41 front of people's minds sums it all up really. It is all
42 about getting into people's minds and making them think
43 about your company, making them think about the McDonald's
44 company. And that applies to children as well as adults.
45
46 Mr. Hawkes said that McDonald's concentrated on TV as the
47 "most powerful advertising medium" and that in the UK the
48 company advertises on TV to children - he was referring
49 particularly to two to eight year olds - most weeks of the
50 year. I am going to go into those figures in more detail
51 later. And again, something which we would consider to be
52 extremely sinister.
53
54 Mr. Hawkes hoped that teaching children McDonald's songs
55 would "keep the memory of McDonald's at the forefront of
56 their minds, so they can again ask their parents if they
57 can come to McDonald's". We would say that that is clear
58 manipulation and exploitation of children through the use
59 of their advertising.
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