Tesco Brand Guarantee ad vetoed by ASA following Sainsbury's complaint
A national press campaign promoting Tesco's price-matching Brand Guarantee scheme has been spiked by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following a complaint from Sainsbury's, who said the ad was "misleading".
The print ad, was headlined "Never pay more for your branded shop", with text below reading: "If it's cheaper than Asda, Morrisons or Sainsbury's we'll take the money off your bill at the till."
Small print at the bottom of the promotion stipulated that the scheme would only apply to shoppers purchasing a "min. basket of 10 different products, including one comparable branded product," but the retailer's rival claimed that the grocer hadn't made the 10-item minimum requirement clear enough.
Despite Tesco saying it believed the campaign was "consistent with the industry's wider approach to price match advertising," the watchdog upheld the complaint on the grounds that consumers "would not necessarily be aware of the conditions involved, or that there might be a minimum purchase requirement, in particular if an ad suggested otherwise."
With regards to the "never pay more for your branded shop" tagline, the ASA said this was likely to be taken by shoppers to mean that if they purchased branded goods, they would qualify for the price match against the named retailers."
Tesco relaunched its Brand Guarantee policy towards the end of 2015, announcing that difference in prices between it and the other 'big four' supermarkets would be dedicated automatically in-store at the tills.
The regulator has told the retailer that the ad must not be shown again in it's current form, in response Tesco said: “We’ve listened to customer feedback and have already changed the layout of our adverts where necessary. There won’t be any changes to Brand Guarantee as a result of this decision.”