Day 049 - 09 Nov 94 - Page 10
1 that is what you are being asked.
2 A. Because in the talks, when you go into the debate
3 section of the talk, it was set up in a very informal way,
4 where they really are just talking to you, really; and,
5 again, one of the objections that came up to feeling that
6 they wanted to go vegetarian or they wanted to cut out meat
7 was that they did not want to be the odd one out. So I
8 would say something like, "Well, why would you feel you are
9 the odd one out", and they would say, "Because all my mates
10 go to McDonald's. Everyone goes to McDonald's"; and so you
11 just have a chat about it and ask them what it was about
12 McDonald's that they saw as being so great; and you just
13 talk about that and ask them why it was -- because one of
14 the questions I used to ask them quite a lot was: why was
15 it that they were so concerned about McDonald's and not
16 about, say, Wimpy or Burger King, or whatever; and they,
17 themselves -- the teenagers I am talking about now -- were
18 aware that the reasons for that were, as I said before, the
19 hype that McDonald's had created, that it was the place to
20 go.
21
22 When I asked them what the actual hype was referring to,
23 again, with the older kids -- and we are talking like 13 to
24 18 year-olds now -- they would specifically mention the
25 television advertising a lot, and they would also say they
26 had seen the television advertising for many years. That
27 came up again and again.
28
29 MS. STEEL: You said they knew about the chain from being tots?
30 A. Yes. I think it was just something that had been part
31 of their lives for so long that it is very difficult to
32 reject something that, you know, your school says is
33 normal, your dentist says is normal, your doctor may say it
34 is normal, by giving out rewards from McDonald's; and it is
35 quite difficult to reject something that was seen as being
36 fun and positive and good, when you were younger.
37
38 Q. You mentioned about rewards from doctors and dentists. Did
39 you have an experience of schools participating in that
40 kind of thing?
41 A. Only one school. That was a school that were using, I
42 think it was McDonald's vouchers, as a reward scheme for
43 the pupils, because I specifically spoke to the head
44 teacher about it.
45
46 So, again, you know, McDonald's if the pupils are being
47 told that McDonald's are obviously a very positive force,
48 if they are being used by the school itself, then, again,
49 it becomes very difficult for a pupil to say, "I am not
50 going to go to McDonald's", when even the school is using
51 it as a reward scheme.
52
53 So of course the kids naturally will feel like they are the
54 odd one out if they are standing up against that.
55
56 Q. Going on to the second page of the statement, that the
57 younger children mentioned the contents of the ads and the
58 characters, and advertising was the main influence. Can
59 you explain what the children said and what you mean by
60 what you have written there?
