Aldi has failed in its bid to get a Tesco advert banned over pricing claims that it labelled “misleading”.
The discount grocer said the advert, which announced that “hundreds” of Tesco products had been price-matched with Aldi equivalents, did not make the basis of the comparison clear.
Customers might assume they could buy branded products at the Big 4 grocer for Aldi own-brand prices, or that the price-match applied to Aldi’s entire product range, it argued.
However, the complaint was not upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
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It ruled that Tesco had highlighted its prices would be matched across the same branded product, or at least a similar product.
With one exception, all of the branded products in the Tesco scheme were compared against an identical product at Aldi.
The watchdog also decided that the price-match claim did not apply to all Aldi products, as the advert signalled Tesco was adding “big brands” to an existing scheme.
The ASA ruling marks the latest development in a rivalry between the two supermarkets over pricing claims.
In September 2019, the Big 4 grocer was forced to pull a series of adverts after a challenge by Aldi.
The discounter said the adverts falsely implied that shoppers could save money by swapping to “Exclusively at Tesco” products.
While the advertising watchdog struck down most of the complaint, it agreed that Tesco had been “misleading” as its exclusive range was not “widely available” in stores.