Supermarket

The television advertisement for Tesco’s ‘Price Promise’ referred to the following:

“Shopping for great value just got a little easier with the Tesco price promise. It works like this. If the cost of the comparable groceries in your shopping is cheaper at Aldi or Lidl, we’ll give you a voucher for the difference at the check out to use in your next shop… The Tesco Price Promise you won’t lose out at the checkout.”

The footnote stated:
Max voucher value €10. Prices checked at Aldi and Lidl in-store. Min 10 different items including 1 comparable item to qualify. Products are compared on size, weight, volume and flavours so some exclusions will apply. Purchases in Express stores not eligible for price promise. Images for illustration purposes only. Full details at tescopricepromise.ie”.

The complainant expressed concern with the statement “…you won’t lose out at the checkout.” He considered that as the savings to be made were capped at €10, if Tesco customers incurred greater savings than €10 they could very well end up losing out at the checkout.

The advertisers said that in all of their marketing communications in relation to their ‘Price Promise’ campaign they had been very clear in referencing the fact that the saving to be made by customers was capped at €10. They also said that they had manually tracked the shopping baskets of their customers for the first seven weeks of the campaign and the number of customers who would have qualified for vouchers over €10 if there had not been a cap in place was miniscule. They provided the ASAI with their tracking statistics on a confidential basis.

The advertisers also said that they had noted that the complainant had referenced the €10 saving cap in his complaint and therefore they did not consider that he had been misled by their advertising.

Complaint not upheld.

The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. They noted that the advertisers had been very clear in all of their advertising material concerning the fact that there was a cap of €10 on the savings which customers could make at the checkout. They also noted from the statistics provided by the advertisers that the number of customers who would have qualified for savings greater than €10 was miniscule. In the circumstances the Committee did not consider that the advertising had breached the requirements of the Code and did not uphold the complaint.

Action Required:
No further action was required in this case.