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How do McDonald's encourage children to purchase their products?
Well, Birthday Party treats are one way. Now they're obviously very enjoyable and children
like going to them, but of course that's just another way of tempting children to go into
McDonald's and perhaps once they've been in for a birthday treat they want to go back in time
and time again.
How do you think children feel who don't go to McDonald's?
I think that the way that McDonald's promote themselves is very much that, everybody
goes to McDonald's and that McDonald's is the place that all children love, and therefore
if you're a child and you don't get taken to McDonald's then perhaps you're going to feel
left out and unhappy about that.
Could you tell us about McDonald's schools packs?
McDonald's like many food companies have produced packs for schools. Now these are so-called
educational packs, but there have been questions about how educational some of these materials
that go into schools really are, and perhaps some of them are more to do with advertising and
promotions than they are to do with education. The National Consumer Council recently took a
look at some of these packs, including the McDonald's one, and they concluded that while there
were useful educational opportunities in these packs, there was also a great deal of promotion
as well, and that McDonald's products were featured very prominently in some of the exercises
that children were asked to do.
Could you comment on this quote from McDonald's confidential Operations Manual: 'Ronald
loves McDonald's and McDonald's food and so do children because they love Ronald. Remember,
children exert a phenomenal influence when it comes to restaurant selection. This mean you should do everything you can
to appeal to children's love for Ronald and McDonald's'
I think that by employing that strategy they are really exploiting children. They are
exploiting children's special relationship that they have with characters like Ronald
McDonald, and they're using that to encourage children to go to McDonald's and I think there's
a question of whether it's right for any company to do that. One could say that in fact it
was cynical exploitation of children.
Could you also comment on this incident from the trial? McDonald's Head of Marketing agreed with the
description of children as 'virgin ground' as far as marketing is concerned.
McDonald's know that children are very open to advertising and they know that it has an
effect. It obviously encourages children to come to McDonald's and to eat their products.
In describing children as virgin territory it just shows that, whatever they may say
publicly, privately they really are working through children and using children and I
think there's a question of whether its morally right for them to be doing that.
McDonald's promotional leaflets say that 'everytime you eat at McDonald's
you will be eating good, nutritious food'. What would you say about that?
Much of McDonald's food is high in fat and high in sugar, and these aren't the
kind of nutrients that children need to eat more of. In fact, we're all recommended
to eat less fats and sugars. It's rather difficult to eat a balanced, nutritional
meal in McDonald's. Much of their food is rather low in fibre and it's also quite
high in salt as well as being high in fats and sugars and therefore what most people
would understand to be good, nutritious food isn't what McDonald's is serving to its
customers. So if McDonald's are calling their food 'nutritious' then I think that
they are perhaps being misleading in the sense that most people would understand the
use of the word 'nutritious'.
What changes would you like to see to the advertising codes in this country?
In this country we have a system that does place some restrictions on the advertising of
some products to children, but in other countries there are much tougher restrictions.
For example, in the Scandinavian countries - in Norway and Sweden - they don't permit any
advertising directed towards children under the age of 12 and that means that children in
those countries see far less advertising than children in the UK. Other countries place
restrictions on the timing of products - for example in the Netherlands confectionery
advertisements must carry a health warning. And what we've been campaigning for in this
country is for tougher restrictions - particularly of fatty and sugary foods to children.
We think that these are the kinds of products that shouldn't be advertised at such high
levels to children as they currently are.
How does the UK compare to the USA?
In both the UK and the US there are pretty high levels of advertising to children,
although if you compare the UK to the rest of Europe, the UK certainly comes out as
one of the top countries in terms of the amount of advertising to children. Many
other European countries have far less advertising towards children.
What do you think is wrong with advertising to children?
There are a number of issues when one is looking at the advertising of products to children,
particularly when it comes to food. Food advertising is generally the largest category of
advertising to children, and I've been involved in surveys that have looked at exactly what
it is that is being advertised towards children, and it is generally the fatty and sugary
food, the foods that do very little to contribute to a healthy balanced diet, these are the
foods that are very highly advertised. One of our concerns is just the sheer amount of
food advertising for products that one could call ' unhealthy food products' which are being
advertised towards children. From a nutritional point of view that probably isn't very
sensible.
Looking more generally at advertising as a whole towards children, there is a question of
whether it is right to advertise towards children, given that young children can not fully
understand what advertising is all about - young children can not necessarily distinguish
between advertisements and programmes, in fact many of the advertisements use cartoon
characters that are often very similar to the cartoon characters used in programming, so is it
right to advertise when children do not fully understand the commercial message that is being
put across to them? They get the message that it's 'buy, buy - to want', but they don't yet
have the critical faculties to assess that product in any context - to make the kinds of
decisions that an adult would be able to make about the purchase of products.
What do you feel about advertising in general - to adults as well as children?
Advertising is very much - has become - an accepted part of our culture. And advertising in
this country is very creative, there's a lot of money that goes into it and there's a lot
of talent behind it. People generally find advertising amusing and of interest, but what
they often forget is that the primary purpose of advertising is to persuade you to buy
something. And, I'm sure that advertisers wouldn't be spending so much money on advertising
their products if it didn't persuade us to do that. We often like to think that we're
immune to advertising - it's not us who buys these products - it's somebody else.
But
advertising operates often on an unconscious level - we're not necessarily conscious of
the influences which effect the choices that we make, and advertising IS in there.
Obviously there's a lot of factors that go into making decisions to purchase a product,
but advertisers know that the effects of their advertising can certainly influence what
we purchase.
Could you explain a little about McDonald's non-direct advertising?
McDonald's are very heavily involved in different kinds of sponsorship events. They may be
involved in schools for example. They've sponsored sporting events in schools where children
are given vouchers for free McDonald's burgers, and they are also involved in trying to set
up McDonald's restaurants in hospitals, and they've also sponsored such things as Ronald
McDonald house at Great Ormond Street. Now by doing this they're doing two things. Firstly,
they are trying to associate their products with a healthy image - for example having a
McDonald's in a hospital - it's like an endorsement that this is a healthy product. After
all, why would it be in a hospital if it wasn't a healthy product? And secondly, they are
trying to associate themselves with charitable events - with good causes. Who would argue
with setting up a house for parents at Great Ormond Street? It's obviously needed and it's
obviously of great benefit but at the same time McDonald's do benefit greatly with it by
associating themselves with something positive and therefore may be hoping to deflect any
kind of negative criticism of other aspects of their operations.
Could you explain how McDonald's benefit from these associations?
McDonald's obviously reap a great deal of benefit in terms of their public image by
associating themselves with good causes, but they also benefit because it's another
opportunity to get their logo displayed on whatever it is. The sad thing is that
actually no commercial company these days is prepared to be involved in any
sponsorship deal unless they get a great deal of benefit out of it in terms of
promotion and advertising. It's simply another form of advertising and marketing
for them. But if they truly wanted to benefit the community, why would they have to insist
on putting their logo over everything?
McDonald's said that without advertising they would have no business. Why do you think
this is the case particularly with McDonald's?
I think McDonald's are very clearly here showing the effect that advertising has. They
know that if they didn't advertise that there would be much less demand for their products
among children. They know that by keeping up that saturation of advertising that it's
keeping McDonald's in the forefront of every child's mind, and they hope to be the first
choice when children come to wanting to eat out.
Surely all companies advertise their products, what's different about McDonald's?
Children do see a lot of advertising. McDonald's certainly aren't the only advertisers.
But I think what makes McDonald's different is that they are one of a number of advertisers
that are advertising week in week out at quite a high level compared with a number of other
products.
So McDonald's say that without advertising they would have no business. Why do you
think this is the case?
McDonald's know that by advertising it keeps McDonald's - and not another company - in the
forefront of children's minds. So what they're saying is that they know that you can get
burgers and milkshakes in any number of outlets but what they want you to do is to come to
McDonald's and so they have to keep up that level of advertising to encourage you to go to
McDonald's and not one of their competitors. But at the same time what we've seen alongside
this is not just a choice of shall I go to McDonald's? or shall I go to another burger
chain?, it's also about increasing our consumption of burgers and milkshakes and increasing
the number of times that we go to McDonald's. It's about keeping up that level of
advertising, and what we've seen over the last twenty odd years or however long McDonald's
have been here, has been a real increase in the consumption of these kinds of foods.
So would you go so far as to say McDonald's is all image?
I think a lot of the appeal of McDonald's is its image. Its image it puts across in its
advertising, it's the image that it has in its stores. I think the food itself is probably
nothing special but the image of the fun place to be is obviously what appeals to children.
How were you treated in the witness box by McDonald's QC? Were you impressed by him?
It's a fairly intimidating experience standing up in the witness box, but I guess that's the
way our courts are designed to be - adversarial. I'm used to arguing about the issues but I
was less used to being attacked personally by Richard Rampton and I didn't find that a
particularly pleasant experience. But when it came to his arguments he was really just
trotting out the same industry arguments that I've heard time and time again. Arguments
which I don't think anybody of any real intelligence takes that seriously.
What kind of arguments?
Well, they really were just the same tired old arguments that I've heard from the
advertising industry time and time again. That surely advertising doesn't have any
real effect, that we should give children more credit, that children are quite
capable of understanding what advertising is all about, that they're fully capable
of making the kinds of decisions that you would expect adults to make. Well, all
the evidence shows that this just isn't true.
Did you have any hesitations when you were asked to appear in this trial?
Initially, when Helen and Dave first approached me to appear, I was slightly cautious.
But when I looked at what Helen and Dave were wanting
to do, I had tremendous admiration for both of them and I wanted to come and appear
and give my expert opinion in the trial. I felt that was very important because I
think what this trial has brought out is that individuals like Dave and Helen can
appear in court and, and can take on the legal weight of a company like McDonald's
and I think that's very important for British justice.
How did you feel after you came out of the witness box?
I felt quite pleased with the way that I'd presented my case, the information that I'd
wanted to get over, but it had also been a pretty intimidating experience. I think
I decided after having survived that that I should never be afraid of too much else
for the rest of my life.
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