Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 16


     
     1        realisation of the character and positioning we have in the
     2        advertising.  The bit I was mentioning is from the toy food
     3        section of the fact sheet.
     4
     5        Miss Juliet Gellatley, the former director of Youth
     6        Education and Campaigns of the Vegetarian Society, when she
     7        was in that position she gave talks to about 30,000
     8        children of all ages in around 500 classroom debates and
     9        also talks to thousands of adults as well on vegetarianism
    10        related issues.
    11
    12        She related how, following some of the talks, the children
    13        would discuss changing their diets and that on many
    14        occasions, of those people who were interested in going
    15        vegetarian, some felt that they could not because they
    16        would be the odd one out or be laughed at if they could not
    17        go to McDonald's.  That is obviously relevant to the point
    18        about being the odd one out and whether or not you are
    19        viewed as -- well, the normality trap.
    20
    21        She said that sometimes they indicated that this was
    22        because of the hype and that they would talk about the
    23        advertisements that they had seen and that McDonald's had
    24        been the only burger chain that had been specifically
    25        mentioned and she had been surprised about that and about
    26        the fact that it had come up so often.
    27
    28        She stated that McDonald's claim that they do not exploit
    29        children because "children are never encouraged to ask
    30        their parents to bring them to McDonald's" was farcical and
    31        that clearly the main purpose of advertising aimed at two
    32        to eight year olds was precisely to encourage children to
    33        ask their parents to take them to McDonald's; otherwise,
    34        what would be the point in advertising directly to such
    35        young children.
    36
    37        I think, actually, in the end, the Plaintiffs' own
    38        witnesses admitted that that was -- or they withdrew from
    39        that position, that children were not encouraged to ask
    40        their parents to bring them to McDonald's.  Obviously, they
    41        realised just what a ridiculous position it was to take.
    42
    43        She related how the children kept mentioning Ronald
    44        McDonald and it was obvious that they looked up to him as
    45        just a pure and positive fun character and something that
    46        was quite real to them.  She said that the younger children
    47        seemed to think it did not matter how much of McDonald's
    48        products they ate, it was healthy and good, because Ronald
    49        told them that.  And on top of the children referring to
    50        getting their parents to take them to McDonald's, Miss
    51        Gellatley also said that many of the adults have referred
    52        to that.
    53
    54        Obviously, Miss Gellatley had a great deal of experience in
    55        this field and expertise and she said that there probably
    56        wasn't anybody else who had given so many talks to school
    57        children on that subject as she had and had that kind of
    58        experience of children's perceptions from McDonald's
    59        advertising and McDonald's effects in general.
    60

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