Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 29


     
     1        He said on page 14, line 35, that 25 to 34 year olds with
     2        children tended to be more brand loyal and that brand
     3        loyalty started through the experience in the restaurant,
     4        but in terms of how McDonald's develop that and grow that,
     5        it was based on advertising both to adults and to
     6        children.
     7
     8        He said, on day 41, page 49, line 42, that persuading
     9        people to eat at McDonald's rather than at home, he said
    10        that that was the general goal in terms of improving the
    11        frequency of visits to McDonald's, although he claimed that
    12        it would be a difficult thing to do, but the fact is that
    13        it still remains a general goal.  In other words, the
    14        company is trying to divert people away from home where
    15        they might eat more healthy meals and into the stores to
    16        increasingly rely upon high fat, low fibre food such as
    17        that sold by McDonald's.
    18
    19        This was a point I was referring to earlier, and I could
    20        not actually find the reference for it at the time.  On day
    21        42, page 2, line 59, Mr. Hawkes said McDonald's spent £35
    22        million on advertising and promotion in 1993, that is UK
    23        McDonald's.  He said on top of that, restaurants spend more
    24        money locally, that about 1 percent of the local store's
    25        budget goes to local advertising and promotion, and that 5
    26        percent of turnover from local stores went to the national
    27        advertising budget.  The last part of that was page 3, line
    28        37.  He agreed on page 59, line 39, that approximately 6
    29        percent of turnover through McDonald's restaurants goes on
    30        advertising and promotion.
    31
    32        He said, on page 3, day 42, that the purpose of promotions
    33        was to increase the frequency of visits during the period
    34        of promotion.  So again that is more evidence of McDonald's
    35        trying to encourage people to come into their stores more
    36        often, despite the assertion or the claim to encourage
    37        people to balance their diet.  He said that the fast food
    38        section of the market is growing as a whole; more people
    39        are eating fast food now than they were 20 years ago.  That
    40        was on page 19, line 12, day 42, as well.
    41
    42        He said that generally the company did not interview under
    43        16 year olds, so they had no idea of the frequency of their
    44        visits.  That was day 42, page 20, line 19.
    45
    46        Moving on to the point about whether McDonald's
    47        advertisements encourage children to think that McDonald's
    48        is part of everyday life and thereby make them feel the odd
    49        one out if they are not a part of that, I think that there
    50        has been a substantial amount of evidence which shows that
    51        that is what McDonald's advertising is designed to do.
    52
    53        If I just give some examples of that.  Some of this ties in
    54        with a trip to McDonald's being a fun event.  There is
    55        quite a bit of overlap really.  In fact, probably a fun
    56        event and gimmicky stuff and happy meals and so on, I will
    57        try and do it all together in this section rather than in
    58        the third section, and just concentrate on the third
    59        section about pester power.
    60

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