Day 257 - 06 Jun 96 - Page 39


     
     1        A.  That is correct, yes.
     2
     3   Q.   The average number of visits a year is what you look at to
     4        see what the make-up of your custom is?
     5        A.  Yes.
     6
     7   Q.   But you are not actually trying to find an accurate figure,
     8        of the kind we are searching for in this case, how often
     9        people actually do visit, all you want is some basic
    10        material to see where your marketing should go next?
    11        A.  That is correct.
    12
    13   Q.   Is that right?
    14        A.  That is correct, yes.
    15
    16   Q.   It does not necessarily matter whether it is very accurate
    17        as long as it gives you some indication?
    18        A.  Yes, that is indeed correct.  It is the kind of number
    19        that we would use to calculate the number of tray liners or
    20        the number of cups we need in a year, or the number of
    21        whatever.  It is data from our internal till system that we
    22        would use for exactly the reasons you have given.
    23
    24   Q.   If we look at page 3, whatever it does mean what you really
    25        want to know is that 16 to 24 year olds visit one and a
    26        fifth times as often as 45 to 64 year olds?
    27        A.  That is correct, yes.
    28
    29   Q.   Even that surprises me, but there we are.
    30        A.  The previous assertion that the typical or average
    31        McDonald's customer visits between somewhere between 19 and
    32        30 times a year is indeed correct, and that is the kind of
    33        assumption we would not use in an assumption much more
    34        accurate than that to plan the business upon because it is
    35        hard to be certain about any calculation in this sense
    36        because it is all upon assumption based upon a small
    37        sample, whether it is our existing till system or whether
    38        it is a research source you are never going to interview,
    39        you know, 650 million people, you are going to interview
    40        'X' number of million people.
    41
    42   MS. STEEL:  The 650 million figure is the figure that comes from
    43        your tills?
    44        A.  It is partially-----
    45
    46   Q.   So it might be thought to be the most accurate figure?
    47        A.  No, that figure is derived from the number of
    48        -- I think at the time, transactions going through our
    49        tills in a year was about 250 million, and it was
    50        multiplying that number by, I think, between abut 2.5 and 
    51        2.7 to get to 650 million.  The 2.5 or 2.7 would come from 
    52        various research sources.  AF2 would be one of them. 
    53        Another one that is not here is a piece of research we call
    54        a trading area survey, which is something that picks up
    55        people's usage patterns around our restaurants.
    56
    57   Q.   It might also come from the till information where you can
    58        tell, for example, one transaction includes two drinks or 3
    59        drinks and 3 burgers or 3 burgers?
    60        A.  We can break down numbers of, as you say, items by

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