Day 047 - 07 Nov 94 - Page 58
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have a particular add in mind?
2
3 MR. MORRIS: I am just thinking.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You see it sounds as if Mr. Miles is not
6 troubled by a commercial concern having a figure identified
7 with their company and products for which children may feel
8 a growing bond of affection, like your Ronald. It does not
9 appear that that is in breach of these items, that occur,
10 and his point is that it looks as if the regulators do not
11 think so because they have passed Ronald who is just such a
12 character and you say he is wrong about that and if he
13 were, we would have to look and see where it took the case,
14 but is there some other particular example apart from that
15 generality that you want to put?
16
17 MR. MORRIS: Yes, the question, the witness, Mr. Miles, did say
18 the question is how that person is used and what they might
19 say, there could be a line which it transgressed in code
20 and if I read this out you give me your opinion... I mean
21 if this is quite an embarrassing question -- but if a
22 company was trying to generate very powerful emotions such
23 as love for a particular character, would that be getting
24 into the area of possible loyalty problems?
25 A. I find it difficult to envisage that being the case. I
26 do not believe that most people, whether adults or
27 children, feel so intensely about a product that they would
28 feel the emotion of love towards it. I find it impossible
29 to imagine circumstances in which that might arise.
30
31 Q. Well, this operation and training manual which is a secret
32 commercial document, it's available during this trial, it's
33 got about ronald mcdonald's personal appearances and the
34 quote is, amongst many other quotes on the page, the quote
35 is, "Ronald loves McDonalds and McDonalds food, and so do
36 children because they love Ronald. Remember children exert
37 a phenominal inference when it comes to restaurant
38 selection. This means you should do everything you can to
39 appeal to children's love of Ronald and McDonalds."
40 Now, I will just read the first two sentences again.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It would help if you give us a page number
43 when you are reading it and we are not looking at it.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: Sorry - 153 - "Ronald loves McDonalds and McDonalds
46 food and so do children because they love Ronald." Aren't
47 they - well, certainly in this document, whether they are
48 doing it in the adds is another question - aren't they
49 saying that it's important to generate love for that
50 character because then the children will buy the food
51 because the character likes the food. In other words,
52 because of their loyalty to the character they will be
53 loyal to that food sold by the company?
54 A. Well, I think they are saying something like that but
55 they are saying it to their employees or their franchisees,
56 whatever they are. They are not saying this in an
57 advertisement. My comment earlier in reply to your question
58 was that if an advertisement started talking about love for
59 a character or love for a product, I would have thought
60 that would be over the top, but what they do in internal
