Sainsbury's reprimanded after Asda complaint

Sainsbury’s cannot show the television advert in its current form after the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) upheld a complaint from its rival that it was not clear which stores were participating.

Asda brought four other complaints over the ads to the watchdog, all of which were dismissed.

The ASA said: “We considered the qualification in the TV ad, ‘Excludes Locals, Centrals and online. Selected stores excluded’ was ambiguous as it referred specifically to Locals and Centrals but then in the following sentence used the generic term stores, which we considered consumers may not understand referred only to the main estate stores.

“Although we understood that details of the main estate stores that were not participating were included on the website, we considered this should have been made clearer to consumers in the ad.

“Because we considered the qualification regarding participating stores was unclear and ambiguous, we concluded the TV ad was misleading.”

Sainsbury’s has credited Brand Match for winning shoppers by negating price in customers’ decision where to shop.

Earlier this month, the grocer reported an underlying pre-tax profits climb by 7.1% to £712m in the year to March 17, when sales rose 6.8% to £24.51bn.

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: “To avoid customer disappointment we state where there are exclusions and a small number of stores where we are unable to offer Brand Match are detailed on our website.

“We believe Brand Match contains no more conditions than similar schemes and where customers do require further details about the scheme and its conditions this is easily accessible on our website.”