Tesco has been given its second Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ban in less than a year following a complaint from Asda.
The ads promoted price comparisons between products in-store based on Tesco Clubcard transactions that were compared with its rival Asda.
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A press ad included the copy “We include more than half of everything our customers buy,” while the TV ad stated: “Equivalent products compared, covering over half of our customers purchases.”
The ASA, the UK’s competition watchdog, said both ads were misleading because Tesco listed more than 31,000 items on Tesco.com, but only matched around 12,000 of those lines with Asda. It also ruled the reference to “baskets” in the ads was misleading because Tesco could not match all the items in each basket, and in some cases, had only matched one item.
It stated the press ad breached CAP code clauses ‘truthfulness’ and ‘comparisons with identified competitors’. It also ruled the TV ad was ambiguous and therefore misleading.
As a result both the TV and press ads must not appear again in their current form.
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By GlobalData
