Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 36


     
     1
     2   Q.   The action they decided was to move ahead as appropriate.
     3        Point (4) is the important point:  "Initial Position - We
     4        all seemed to agree that, if possible, McDonald's should
     5        attempt to deflect the basic negative thrust of our
     6        critics by creating a scenario where we take the high
     7        road.   How do we do this?  By talking 'moderation and
     8        balance'.  We can't -- at this stage of the situation --
     9        really address or defend nutrition.  We don't sell
    10        nutrition and people don't come to McDonald's for
    11        nutrition.  Rather than fight a defensive war of attrition
    12        by responding to constant nutrition attacks, let's not
    13        even deal with it.  Rather, as you suggest, let's try to
    14        develop a broad umbrella position where we incorporate the
    15        following points."
    16
    17        Let me just read the points out for clarification:
    18         "(a) McDonald's is not suggesting all meals or even a
    19        majority of meals be of the quick service variety.
    20
    21        (b) McDonald's does strongly suggest (and 80 million
    22        people a day support us) that there is a time and a place
    23        for one or more quick-service meals or snacks a week
    24        within almost everyone's weekly meal schedule.  This can
    25        be anything from breakfast to a Big Mac, Coke and fries to
    26        a late-night snack.
    27        (c)  We're concerned about nutrition, health, diet, etc.
    28        and that is why we talk balance and moderation".  I do not
    29        want to read the rest of this.  The next point is salads.
    30        There is nothing sneaky about it; it is just that it is
    31        taking a long time to read the entire thing out; the point
    32        being the position they talked about there, about not
    33        addressing or defending nutrition but talking balance and
    34        moderation, in the light of having seen this memo, do you
    35        feel that it puts their subsequent advertising campaign in
    36        some kind of context?
    37        A.  I think it serves as further support for the
    38        conclusion set forth in the April 24, 1987 letter signed
    39        by Attorney General Mattox that says that McDonald's
    40        intent was to deceive customers into believing the
    41        opposite from what we had concluded.  In other words, that
    42        McDonald's intent was to make consumers believe that
    43        McDonald's food was as a whole nutritious.
    44
    45        The way that it gives that support is that it shows that
    46        McDonald's had knowledge to the opposite, that the
    47        consumers believed that McDonald's food was not
    48        nutritious.  This statement by their agent here to the
    49        effect that they cannot depend or address nutrition tells
    50        me that they could not do so because they did not overall 
    51        have products that were nutritious. 
    52 
    53        Knowing this, McDonald's still went ahead with the
    54        campaign that then resulted in our April 24, 1987 letter
    55        to McDonald's, and gives further support for our
    56        conclusion in that letter that they did make the claims in
    57        the advertising intentional.
    58
    59   Q.   This memo is 17th March 1986.  It was the previous year.
    60        It was before, in fact, they produced the national

Prev Next Index