Day 047 - 07 Nov 94 - Page 07
1 Q. We have noticed in this court that it would appear from
2 some tables that we have got that these who manufacture and
3 sell household cleaning products seem to spend a large
4 proportion of their turnover on advertising. Do you know
5 what the reason for that is likely to be?
6 A. It would be because it is a very competitive market,
7 one in which market share can be fairly dynamic, can change
8 fairly substantially over a relatively short period; and
9 because, also, there is a high level of new product, new
10 ingredient/new product introduction.
11
12 Q. "New, improved so and so"?
13 A. That is right.
14
15 Q. Again, one has noticed that there appears to be some degree
16 of competition between people who manufacture and sell
17 fizzy drinks. Would that be right?
18 A. Yes.
19
20 Q. If I am Coca Cola, what sort of a market am I aiming at
21 with my advertising; who am I trying to persuade to buy my
22 product?
23 A. I have never worked precisely in that market, but I
24 think the majority of sales would go to teenagers and also
25 to parents of teenagers. Speaking as a parent of former
26 teenagers, I can recall having to keep the house well
27 stocked with the particular brands that they wanted.
28
29 Q. And who are my principal competitors?
30 A. Other manufacturers of comparable drinks, but also the
31 retailers who sell those drinks under a label and people
32 who sell non-fizzy drinks of a different nature. There are
33 plenty of still drinks. Lots of people still drink water,
34 or milk or tea. So all those products are competing with
35 each other to a greater or lesser extent.
36
37 Q. I want to come specifically to advertising to children and,
38 in particular, by means of television, and, to a less
39 extent perhaps, by radio.
40
41 I want you to consider for the moment, if you will, a child
42 of an age who is not likely to be allowed by his parents to
43 go out into the street and buy a meal in a fast food
44 restaurant. So far as you are concerned, what is the
45 purpose of spending a lot of money, making and showing
46 advertisements to children of that sort of age?
47 A. I would see it as two-fold: firstly, the advertiser
48 will hope that the company advertising will be seen as
49 liked by the children, as well as the adults, because they
50 have many years of potentially being a customer, many years
51 ahead. So, as I said a few moments ago, the long term
52 objectives of information and persuasion may be just as
53 important as the short term ones.
54
55 Secondly, they would hope that when parents decide to go to
56 one particular restaurant or another, children will be
57 happy with it.
58
59 Again, if I may go off at a tangent, we know from research
60 that many parents find a real problem in getting their
