Day 041 - 28 Oct 94 - Page 49
1 spots had a Japanese flavour. Convinced that McDonald's
2 would have better luck selling the new hamburger product to
3 japan's youth, he aimed virtually all of his advertising at
4 children and young families."
5
6 Then it is quoting him: " 'The eating habits of older
7 Japanese are very conservative', he explains, 'but we can
8 teach the children that the hamburger was something
9 good'".
10
11 The question I am going to ask that is the crux of the
12 matter is, advertising, does it not, has a role not only in
13 competition with your immediate competitors, but it also
14 has a role in expanding the base of that market as a whole;
15 is that not a fact?
16 A. Well, the conventional wisdom, if we are talking about
17 the UK, the conventional wisdom in the UK, as we currently
18 are, would indicate that when you are advertising a brand
19 such as McDonald's that our best business route to go would
20 be to advertise to attract from other sectors of that QSR
21 sector -- yes, of the QSR sector.
22
23 In doing that, obviously as in the case of children, new
24 children are born; they come into that universe, but that
25 is not our key target. Our target is to bring more people
26 in from the QSR sector. The Japanese experience I have no
27 knowledge of whatsoever, so I find it difficult to comment
28 on that.
29
30 Q. But is it not a fact that advertising is capable of
31 generating interest for a new product completely that
32 people have not had before?
33 A. Of course, from day 1 you have to show your wares, if
34 you like, to the consumer, to the potential consumer, of
35 course-----
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Another way of putting what Mr. Morris was
38 putting, quite apart from persuading someone to come in to
39 you rather than Burger King, or something, is not an
40 element of it trying to persuade them to have a McDonald's
41 meal tonight or this lunch-time rather than eating in?
42 A. In terms of us improving the frequency of visit to
43 McDonald's, then that is the general goal then, yes, you
44 could say that. In fact, that is extremely difficult to
45 do. Therefore, we would not target it that way because it
46 is just too hard to do that. The decision to eat in a
47 particular way at a particular given time is much more
48 difficult to influence than it is to have some influence
49 when a person says: "I am going to in this particular
50 circumstance eat something quickly. I want something
51 quick, I am on the move, or I fancy a hamburger or I have
52 not got time for something", then it is much easier for
53 them to think of McDonald's in that repertoire.
54
55 In fact, we are very bad at the situation that you just
56 gave where we are fairly low down on the repertoire of
57 going out from home specifically to eat.
58
59 MS. STEEL: How would advertisements differ if they were going
60 to be directed at encouraging people to come out from home
