Day 041 - 28 Oct 94 - Page 53

     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But is that saying any more than you have
     2        said earlier -- correct me if I have misunderstood -- that
     3        the role of advertising is in large part to get people to
     4        come in for the first time, then you hope the in-store
     5        experience will live up to their expectations and they will
     6        be inclined to come back on another occasion?
     7        A.  When you are first starting out in the marketplace,
     8        that is certainly true.  As your market matures and your
     9        product category has got more and more competition in it --
    10        to give you an example, we have had, I think, the majority
    11        of the UK people have at some point visited a McDonald's
    12        restaurant.  So, they understand what McDonald's is and
    13        largely have made up their mind about certain areas of
    14        McDonald's.  They either have rejected it or they embrace
    15        it in their repertoire.
    16
    17        For us then to continue to advertise to the rejectors is
    18        not the best use of our money, so we advertise to the
    19        people we know are potential users.  What that amounts to
    20        then is very much trying to take business from competition.
    21
    22   MR. MORRIS:  One of the pillars of your advertising is the
    23        advertising at children, is it not?
    24        A.  It is an important part of our advertising but, as we
    25        have said, it is not the major part.  The major part of our
    26        advertising is very much adults.
    27
    28   Q.   In 1985 Paul Preston was quoted in the Evening Standard as
    29        saying:  "Most of our television commercials went out in
    30        the afternoon when the kids were watching. There was
    31        pressure from the kids which brought their parents into our
    32        restaurants."   You were saying that the children's
    33        advertising percentage has gone down; is that correct?
    34        A.  Yes, as a percentage of the overall -----
    35
    36   Q.   As a percentage of the budget, but does that pattern
    37        continue back to the 70s, in other words, the percentage
    38        spent on children's advertising, does it go up the further
    39        back you go in the UK, as far as you know?
    40        A.  What happened basically was in the early advertising in
         the UK we had to, on very limited resources, position
    42        McDonald's in the best way that we could.  We did that
    43        through ronald mcdonald advertising and some very basic
    44        adult commercials showing the ambience, and really what we
    45        stood for as a company.  As I alluded to earlier, that
    46        Ronald advertising would have been across afternoon
    47        children's air-time and this cross-over air-time.  So, it
    48        was almost doing a bit of an adult role for us as well in
    49        those early days.
    50 
    51   Q.   What I am saying is that when you say, for example, from 
    52        1986 it was 31 per cent of the budget directed at, we are 
    53        talking about young children here, 2 to 7 or whatever, to
    54        8, that has gone down to 14.66 per cent, would that
    55        trajectory have continued back to 81, 75?
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Why do you not ask him what it was like when
    58        he arrived in October 1982?
    59
    60   MR. MORRIS:  Do you know what percentage of the budget was spent