Day 300 - 14 Nov 96 - Page 06

     
     1
     2        She went on to say that the Independent Television
     3        Commission's code on advertising states that advertisements
     4        should not exploit children's sense of loyalty.  She
     5        considered that the ronald mcdonald character did play on
     6        children's sense of loyalty and in that sense it could be
     7        said that he was exploiting their emotions, or the
     8        character was exploiting their emotions.  She said that
     9        presumably the ITC had not judged it unacceptable because
    10        it was not done in an overt way, but nevertheless it was
    11        being done.  That was day 54, page 24, line 22.
    12
    13        She was asked about the quote in the operations manual,
    14        about using children's love of Ronald to bring children
    15        into the store to buy the food or to get their parents to
    16        buy them food, and she said it appeared to be a direct
    17        exhortation to managers to use children's emotions and
    18        their love for Ronald to bring them into the restaurant.
    19        She said "I do not think it is ethical".  That was day 54,
    20        page 26, line 59.
    21
    22        Obviously that is something that we agree with; we do not
    23        consider it to be ethical.  We consider it to be
    24        exploitation of children's emotions.
    25
    26        In summing up the techniques used by McDonald's in
    27        advertising to children, Miss Dibb stated that advertising
    28        to children in the McDonald's adverts is significantly
    29        different from the advertising to adults, particularly in
    30        its use of techniques.  She said these are the techniques
    31        which tend to have their effects on what could be described
    32        as an unconscious level rather than a conscious level and
    33        therefore she considered that they could bring with them,
    34        or that they brought with them a degree of deception or
    35        exploitation, particularly when talking about young
    36        children, who do not fully understand the purpose of
    37        advertising and whose sense of loyalty, for example, may be
    38        being exploited.  That was day 54, page 32, line 21.
    39
    40        She referred to the document which we were looking at
         yesterday in pink bundle 7 at tab 13, which showed that
    42        McDonald's adverts to children were shown 41 weeks out of
    43        52 in 1988.  She said that in her experience she would say
    44        that that level of advertising is amongst the highest for
    45        its regularity.  That was on day 54, page 35, line 46.
    46
    47        She said that the effect of that was to have a fairly
    48        constant reminder to children of McDonald's and to present
    49        McDonald's as omnipresent.  That was day 54, page 35, line
    50        55.
    51
    52        In terms of a comparison to other fast food outlets,
    53        because I think this was some point that the Plaintiffs
    54        were trying to make, she referred to the campaign magazine,
    55        which is an advertiser's magazine.  There was a chart in
    56        there which showed that McDonald's spent 27 million on
    57        above-the-line advertisements in 1993 and that it was the
    58        second largest brand advertiser, and that the next rival
    59        down was Burger King in 79th position who were spending a
    60        quarter of what McDonald's spent.  They spent 6.5 million.