Day 048 - 08 Nov 94 - Page 51
1 MS. STEEL: The company. Do you remember that?
2 A. I remember that, yes.
3
4 Q. I think you said that was a survey that had been done and
5 you had seen the survey; is that right?
6 A. That is right.
7
8 Q. And is that report a fairly accurate reflection of what was
9 in the survey?
10 A. It is, like most things that appear in a snippet from
11 the report, just one small piece. In effect, it was quite a
12 large research study and in a way to try and personify
13 certain traits and characteristics, certain words were
14 given to it and it is only those words that have been
15 picked out and quoted there.
16
17 Q. But overall what was the survey saying? Was it saying those
18 things, that customers had said those things, or what?
19 A. Overall, it was to do with, when McDonalds sells food
20 quickly, the positive side of that is you get your food
21 served quickly. The negative side of that is people will
22 say that the food gets thrown at you, that it is too quick,
23 etc. Our restaurants are extremely clean.
24 The reverse side of that is people will say it is cold and
25 clinical and it was really trying to position these two
26 areas and putting a personality to those apparent negatives
27 of clinical, etc etc. The same with American, because it
28 is known to be an American company, so it takes on....
29
30 Q. But those words, were they known to be the predominant
31 feeling, is what I am trying to get at, in the survey were
32 they the predominant feeling of the people that were
33 surveyed?
34 A. No. What the survey did, it surveyed our current
35 customers, our sort of heavy users and also people that for
36 whatever reasons had decided not to visit McDonalds as
37 regularly, were declining in their visits, those traits
38 were then demonstrable of those that were declining in
39 their visits. We did not get that from our regular customer
40 base.
41
42 Q. You mention the heavy users and say you did not get it from
43 them?
44 A. No. The heavy users by definition would not be
45 painting negatives of us because they are using us
46 regularly.
47
48 Q. So, who was saying these things?
49 A. The people that are using us lighter, less frequently.
50 Had moved away from the brand, if you like.
51
52 Q. Right, but was it the majority of people in the survey that
53 were saying these things or was it just like----
54 A. No. We targeted the survey to the people, our heavy
55 users, so we would ask people in very crude terms, we would
56 ask them how often they use McDonalds, and they would tell
57 us and then we would rate them as being a heavy user or a
58 light user or whatever. We would then ask both categories
59 the questions of why they visited McDonald's and of the
60 lighter users, the majority of the reasons of the lighter