Sainsbury’s has had its complaint against a Tesco advert, which claimed Clubcard points are worth more than Nectar card points, rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Photo: The Tesco advert challenged by Sainsbury’s.

The ASA has given the green light to the digital poster shown by Tesco, which depicted a stack of sandwiches with the text: “Clubcard gives you more to spend on your groceries than Nectar. Stacks more”, and “Get more with Tesco Clubcard”.

The ad also contained text that stated, “Clubcard points are worth 2x the value of Nectar points when converted for spend at Tesco and Sainsbury’s respectively”, with a date of when the two schemes were compared.

Sainsbury’s reported the ad to the advertising watchdog, challenging the comparison between the Tesco Clubcard and Nectar loyalty card schemes by saying it was misleading, and complaining that the ad implied “overall superiority of Clubcard compared to Nectar”.

In response, Tesco argued that consumers were to view the ad as making a specific comparison between the conversion value of Tesco’s Clubcard points and Sainsbury’s Nectar points for spend on groceries.

Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, also argued that a supermarket loyalty scheme’s benefits can be categorised into three areas: savings on the price of products at the point of purchase; collection of points from purchasing items from the retailer or their collection partners; and spend of points when converting them to money for spend with the retailer or their reward partners.

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Tesco said that the qualification clarified that it was the like-for-like standard conversion value for spend of points that was being compared, and this overall message was “clear” when presented to shoppers. The grocery retailer also noted that it had since amended the advert to add further clarification.

The ASA ruled that Sainsbury’s complaint will not be upheld, and declared “no further action” would be taken.

The regulatory body added: “Despite the similarities between the loyalty card schemes, each scheme also had its own unique features.

“However, we considered consumers were unlikely to interpret the claims to be of overall superiority across all features of schemes because of how they were presented in the context of the ads.”

The two supermarket giant’s clash follow Sainsbury’s introduction of its loyalty initiative Nectar Prices in 2023, as it looked to compete with Tesco’s Clubcard scheme.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “Nectar offers great value across a wide range of products with customers earning points on every pound spent and Nectar Prices offering savings of up to £12 off a larger shop.”

Tesco has been contacted for comment.