The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that Asda must adapt some of its price guarantee adverts following complaints from some of its rivals.

The ASA said today that Asda’s price guarantee – which was relaunched in January promising to be 10% cheaper than its rivals – should be adapted.

Rivals Tesco and Morrisons complained that there were significant exclusions from the price comparison.

The ASA upheld, or partly upheld, four of the nine complaints against Asda. The watchdog said that Asda did not make it clear enough that the price guarantee did not apply to non-grocery products, such as books and football-related items that appeared prominently in the adverts.

The ASA said: “We told Asda to ensure their ads did not suggest their price guarantee applied to all items, including non-grocery items and items that were specifically excluded, or that their savings claims referred to shopping generally rather than specific items, if that was not the case.”

Tesco welcomed the ruling, but Asda was also pleased that several of the complaints were not upheld.

Asda said it will just be more specific in its advertising. Its latest tranche of advertising has gone out this week.

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