Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 04


     
     1        considerable degree of proficiency in the more technical
     2        aspects of the food industry.  Another one of our clients
     3        was the preeminent manufacturer of food wrapping
     4        machinery, the name Auto Wrappers.
     5
     6        More recently, I sold my interest in the agency at the age
     7        of 29 and I took a year off, during which I considered how
     8        best to use those talents that I have in marketing, and
     9        I decided that one of the more important things to me was
    10        to use my skills and abilities to promote something that
    11        was worthwhile.
    12
    13        I think one of the reasons that I was increasingly
    14        dissatisfied with the world of marketing and advertising
    15        was that I think you can fairly characterise it as being
    16        ethically neutral.  In other words, it is a tool that can
    17        be used for good or for bad.  Whilst not wishing to malign
    18        any of my previous clients, I suspect that perhaps a lot
    19        of my work for them was not particularly useful in terms
    20        of making the world a slightly better place.
    21
    22        So, after taking 12 months to think about my priorities in
    23        life, I decided to use my skills to promote vegetarianism
    24        and other associated areas.
    25
    26        Now that took the form, first of all, of being the first
    27        Chief Executive of the Vegetarian Society in this country.
    28
    29   Q.   That was when?  Which year?
    30        A.  That was 1985.  I resigned from that position and
    31        spent most of my time after that writing and researching
    32        in this area and in, obviously, the other side of the
    33        coin, the vegetarian coin, is the meat industry.  So I
    34        have become an expert in that area too.  One of the
    35        problems that marketing and advertising people
    36        historically have actually is, although they are very good
    37        at blowing other people's trumpets, they are not
    38        particularly good at blowing their own.
    39
    40        I have to say, with a blushing face, that I was recently
    41        called a marketing genius by the Sunday Times, but I also
    42        have to say that round about the same time, just a few
    43        weeks ago, The Financial Times ran a piece which more or
    44        less compared me to Adolph Hitler.  I suppose that says
    45        something about the degree of confidence one may place in
    46        the press.
    47
    48   Q.   Was he very successful in marketing, Adolph Hitler?
    49        A.  In unethical marketing, I would say.
    50 
    51   Q.   You said about the other side of the coin.  I think this 
    52        is, in fact, what this case is about? 
    53        A.  Yes.
    54
    55   Q.   Partly about, certainly this aspect of the case -- I
    56        cannot remember your words -- what aspect of the meat
    57        industry were you analysing and researching, whatever?
    58        A.  The area that was of greatest interest, and still is,
    59        is the area of promotion, the way that the meat industry
    60        as a whole and specific companies within it, within that

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