Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600-619)
13 NOVEMBER 2003
MRS CILLA
SNOWBALL, MR
BRUCE HAINES
AND MR
ANDREW BROWN
Q600 Mr Jones: You are again answering
questions that I am not asking. We are going to cover that later
on and so you will have your opportunity to answer.
Mr Brown: As a generalisation
again, when advertising is restricted or banned, two or three
things normally happen, to try to answer your question as to what
would happen. First of all, price becomes much more sensitive;
prices normally come down and manufacturers use price then to
compete with each other because they cannot go directly to customers
on brand appeal. That normally has quite difficult effects in
markets. Certainly the Strathclyde study talks about price being
an important way of growing some sectors. You move towards a situation
in which the market continues to exist but the private label becomes
dominant. That normally leads to a lack of innovation and a lack
of product development, which eventually arrives at lower levels
of consumer choice. Those are the standard things that happen.
That is apart from, which is an entirely separate issue, what
happens to the broadcasting, and that is a big issue. The effect
on the market normally follows that.
Mrs Snowball: To add to Andrew's
points, we do not know what the effects of a ban would be. We
do not know that there would be a beneficial effect in terms of
levels of child obesity. The only matters we can look at for comparison
are in the international markets. If you look at the effect of
the ban in Sweden or Quebec, for example, child obesity levels
are still up there at a high rate. I think the answer to your
question is: we do not know what the impact of a ban on advertising
would be in terms of this issue, but equally we have to think
about how children watch television because children watch television
very broadly at all times of day, not just in children's television
air time. A lot of their viewing is in adult air time, over half
of it, and so the effect of a ban during children's television
is only half of the issue because children have their own prolific
television viewing habits. The point Andrew makes about the effect
on programming is valid.
Q601 Mr Jones: You are going to start
promoting CoCo Pops during Coronation Street; is that what
would happen?
Mrs Snowball: We do not handle
CoCo Pops. But, for example, Coronation Street attracts
audiences amongst children at three times the level of the highest
rating children's show in children's air time. Yes, children do
watch Coronation Street.
Mr Brown: To appear in Coronation
Street is very expensive because you are buying a lot of people
to whom you may not want to talk.
Q602 Jim Dowd: Coronation Street
is sponsored by Cadbury's of course. We will not go into that!
Can I return to the question about the cereal-based breakfast?
Is it not true that the greatest nutritional value in a cereal-based
breakfast is the milk that is consumed with it and that most cereals
actually have no more nutritional value in themselves than the
box they come in?
Mr Haines: That is completely
untrue.
Q603 Jim Dowd: Would you care to
explain?
Mr Haines: I am not a nutritionist
but I could go through, if you like, and I think probably I should
as you have said that, the sugar issue on CoCo Pops, for example.
There is no more sugar in a portion—
Q604 Jim Dowd: I was not talking
about sugar. I was talking about the nutritional value in the
rest of the cereal.
Mr Haines: Cereals have been fortified
with all sorts of wonderful things for a long time. A bowl of
CoCo Pops has the same amount of calcium as a portion of cheese,
the same amount of calcium as two portions of spinach, it has
more iron than one and a half portions of spinach, less than a
quarter of the sodium of a bowl of canned tomato soup, and more
folic acid than a portion of broccoli. I have a list here. There
are things in these products which are good for people.
Q605 Jim Dowd: And so is milk?
Mr Haines: And so is milk.
Q606 Dr Naysmith: Keith Bradley raised
some questions about the views of young people and how you appeal
to young people. I am quite interested in how you do your research
with youngsters, particularly very young children. Mr Brown, how
do you find out whether your product is going to appeal to three
and five year-olds?
Mr Brown: I represent a trade
association. I think that would be better handled by a practitioner,
if you do not mind.
Mrs Snowball: The research that
we have conducted, and we put some of it in your folders for you
to see, amongst children, is largely quantitative surveys relating
to the advertising that we produce. We supplement that with qualitative
research, talking to children and talking to mums. Then we back
that up with data from published sources as well on children's
attitudes to television and brands.
Q607 Dr Naysmith: We have read this
document, and thank you very much for it. We quite often try and
explore things a little bit. What I am really interested in is
how much more difficult it is to get the views and target your
campaigns at children of three to five years old than it is if
you have done surveys with adults or if you have focus groups
with adults. Is it more difficult or are you satisfied that the
results are just as valuable when you carry that out? I will come
back to Mr Haines in a moment.
Mrs Snowball: We do not conduct
research with very young children. We tend to do research among
older children. You cannot conduct research with very young children.
They are not capable of handling that.
Q608 Dr Naysmith: How do you direct
your campaigns if what you want to do is get young children, as
we have been hearing earlier on, going to tell their parents,
"We want this"? Do you give reasons and arguments to
these very young children that they may deploy with their parents?
Mrs Snowball: No. We are targeting
older children with our campaigns. We are targeting children of
10 plus.
Q609 Dr Naysmith: You are not targeting
young children?
Mrs Snowball: We are not targeting
them, no.
Q610 Dr Naysmith: Or advertising
to young children?
Mrs Snowball: We are advertising
to young children but you cannot expect a three year-old to participate
meaningfully in research discussions. They are not capable of
that at that age.
Q611 Dr Naysmith: How do you know
whether your advertising to that age of children is having any
effect?
Mrs Snowball: A very small proportion
of the Wotsits advertising, if we are talking about that, is directed
at pre-school children; about 7% of the advertising impact goes
to that very young group.
Q612 Dr Naysmith: You have still
not answered my question. How do you know that the money that
is spent, even of that 7%, is money well spent?
Mrs Snowball: I guess you cannot
know everything. You do not know the precise effect it is having
on the entire audience. All you can do is responsibly research
amongst the bulk of the audience to check that your advertising
is working well.
Q613 Dr Naysmith: I suspect nobody
spends money unless they have some evidence that it is having
an effect.
Mrs Snowball: It is not a perfect
science. You get the information you can and a lot of detail but
it is by no means perfect.
Q614 Dr Naysmith: Do you ever do
advertising in schools? Have you ever been involved in schools?
Some of the advertising campaigns are to industry—and I
am not directing this specifically at your clients but talking
about the industry as a whole—and there are schemes which
get schoolchildren to collect all sorts of things. Is there any
research done in schools for that kind of advertising campaign
before it begins?
Mrs Snowball: We do not do any
advertising in schools. We consult with schools through our client
Walkers who ran the "Free books for schools" scheme
and 36,000 schools took up the scheme, so yes, Walkers had a lot
of dialogue with schools over that process.
Q615 Dr Naysmith: Mr Haines, I do
not know if you want to add anything along the lines we have been
talking about?
Mr Haines: No. I agree with Mrs
Snowball. It is practically pointless trying to conduct research
amongst very young children. We would collect the evidence from
their parents, although most research that we would do concerning
advertising to, say, the under sixes would be through talking
to their parents. We do talk to children aged seven and above.
We talk to them through research companies which have trained
people to talk to children.
Q616 Dr Naysmith: How do you they
do that? How do they talk to children? How do you get the views
of seven year-olds?
Mr Haines: They do it through
focus groups. We collect quantitative information. We ask them
questions, we collect the answers, and we use that data in the
form of a tracking study. We look at the way that those children
are viewing the brand and using the brand's products over time.
Q617 Mr Bradley: I am slightly confused.
I would like you to clarify this. A lot of the merchandise we
have been talking about earlier is directed at very young children
but you do not do any research with those young children to see
what the impact on that product is. You only research it through
their parents and so with the "happy meal" little men
that are for very young children you do not do any research to
see whether that has an impact on that child to persuade the parents
that they ought to go for that "happy meal". My fridge
door is covered in Simpsons cards from a particular product but
that is aimed at my younger children rather than the age group
you are talking about. What is that interrelationship that you
research? I am not clear how you decide what product to sell on
the back of any particular cereal or any other food?
Mr Haines: As a point of clarification,
my company is not responsible for the selection of toys or any
of the promotions that we advertise. Another company, an agency,
is responsible for selecting toys, negotiating licensing deals
with Disney, the BBC or whoever it may be, and then that promotion
is delivered to us and we put it into the context of advertising.
I could get you that information but I do not have it to hand.
Q618 Mr Burns: Just picking up a
point that Mr Bradley made, is that not part of the problem? He
says that his fridge door is full of Simpsons stick-ons, but no-one
has got to go and buy the product. Presumably if you do not want
so many on your fridge door, you would not buy the products as
often as the numbers on the fridge door suggest. There is an element
of parental guidance and control on the buying of products. If
parents want lots of Simpsons stickers on their fridge door, they
will go and buy that product to get them. If they do not want
that many or they only want a more balanced approach, they will
take the decision on behalf of their children, surely?
Mr Haines: Yes.
Mr Burns: It is all a question of parental
responsibility and decision-making as to how often one wants one's
children to eat a "happy meal" or whatever the other
product is. Sometimes it can be tricky but presumably in most
households if you are a responsible parent you would take that
decision.
Q619 John Austin: I have a comment
first. Clearly McDonald's and others very deeply research their
market before they open an outlet or embark on a campaign. I would
be interested to know why McDonald's chose to open a store in
the United Kingdom in my constituency and what research basis
they had to determine that that would be a good place to open
a store.
Mr Haines: They really liked your
constituency!
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