Day 047 - 07 Nov 94 - Page 24

     
     1        their own product or service will obviously tend to help
     2        that move to continue.  But the trend towards eating out or
     3        towards fast food, or towards any other form of eating
     4        occasion, is something that has developed because it is in
     5        line with what consumers want to do, and advertising will
     6        feature the benefits of this brand or that brand.
     7
     8        I am trying to resist the suggestion that advertising
     9        causes those changes. It may sustain them, it may reinforce
    10        them, it may move people from one brand to another, but it
    11        is not the cause of those changes.
    12
    13   Q.   It might be a cause?
    14        A.  A factor, certainly.
    15
    16   Q.   A factor?
    17        A.  Yes.
    18
    19   MS. STEEL: Is it not fair to say that advertising is used to
    20        introduce new food products to consumers?
         A.  Yes; very often it is.
    22
    23   Q.   And that, presumably, is to get them to try those new
    24        products?
    25        A.  Yes.  If I may take an example:  I may see an
    26        advertisement for a new breakfast cereal and decide that I
    27        might try that one in place of the one I have been eating
    28        in recent weeks.  So it is performing a useful function in
    29        telling me that this new variety has been launched.  I
    30        might try it, but it will not change my eating habits.
    31
    32   Q.   Advertising was used to introduce consumers to convenience
    33        food, was it not?
    34        A.  Indeed.
    35
    36   Q.   So, in that way, it could be said that it has influenced
    37        eating habits?
    38        A.  Yes.  But you cannot separate the advertising from the
    39        product.  When frozen peas were launched -- before you were
    40        born, no doubt -- that was a convenience food.  When the
         company concerned put it on the market, they did not fail
    42        to advertise it; it would have been foolish to have done
    43        so.  They put the product on the market and they advertised
    44        it to make sure that people knew it was there.
    45
    46        So the advertising is not the cause of people buying it.
    47        It is one of the factors that encourage people to buy it,
    48        but the cause of people buying it is that the product is
    49        available and it meets consumer needs.
    50 
    51   Q.   When you said it would have been foolish not to advertise 
    52        it, what do you mean by that?  Are you saying that if they 
    53        did not advertise it, people would not take up the product?
    54        A.  People would not know about it.  Advertising is a part
    55        of informing; and with any new product, it is wise to tell
    56        people that it might be there, so that they might want to
    57        buy it.  So advertising should be seen as an inherent part
    58        of the product, not a separate thing in its own right.
    59
    60   Q.   So that would have the same effect, introducing, for