Sainsbury’s has had its complaint against a Tesco advert rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The outdoor digital poster ad that ran last September used the line ‘Clubcard gives you more to spend on your groceries than Nectar. Stacks more’, which Sainsbury’s claimed was misleading. It featured an image of a stack of sandwiches and also included the text: ‘Get more with Tesco Clubcard’.
Meanwhile, small text at the bottom of the poster stated: ‘Clubcard points are worth 2x the value of Nectar points when converted for spend at Tesco and Sainsbury’s respectively.’
Sainsbury’s subsequently complained to the ASA, challenging whether the comparison between the Tesco Clubcard and Nectar loyalty card scheme was misleading.
In response, Tesco said that consumers would view the ad as making a specific comparison between the conversion value of Clubcard points and Nectar points for spend on groceries and that it was not misleading to advertise and highlight specific elements of a loyalty scheme.
The retailer noted that it was commonplace in the grocery retail market for supermarkets to advertise specific elements of their loyalty schemes without highlighting other elements and benefits and provided examples of such ads.
Tesco believed customers had a good understanding of the differences that could arise between loyalty schemes across the retail sector and even produced the findings of a survey it had carried out in August 2023 to prove it.
In its ruling, the ASA dismissed Sainsbury’s concerns, stating that while there may have been differences in the savings and collection of points between the two schemes, the ad highlighted that the same number of points converted to twice the monetary value with Tesco compared to Sainsbury’s when used for groceries and was therefore not misleading.
The advertising watchdog 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 ASA ruled that no further action was required.
Last week, it was revealed that Tesco has launched a trial that sees customers offered tailored Clubcard discounts based on their shopping habits.
NAM Implications:
- The past five years of unprecedented uncertainty have left us with a high proportion of very savvy consumers.
- And media sources that can identify and communicate attention-getting hooks.
- Especially on slow news days…
