Aldi’s claim that it was “the home of Britain’s cheapest Christmas dinner” has been ruled misleading, after Sainsbury’s reported it to advertising watchdog ASA
The newspaper ad highlighted that Which? had found Aldi’s Christmas dinner was more than 20% cheaper than what was sold at Sainsbury’s. It also stated “Sainsbury’s £44.81”, “Aldi £33.80” and “Swap & Save over 20% on your Christmas dinner”.
Small text at the end of the advert, which was published on 6 December, noted this comparison was related to “seven UK supermarkets”.
However, Sainsbury’s claimed that the advert misled shoppers, and that the price comparison – which was carried out between 6 and 27 November – did not represent the prices available during the period when consumers would be purchasing fresh produce for their Christmas dinner, normally in the last week or so before 25 December. The advertising watchdog upheld the complaint.
Aldi responded that the claims in the advert had come from a Which? comparison, shown in an article on its website entitled “Which is the cheapest supermarket for Christmas dinner ingredients?”
However, the ASA claimed the advert would cause consumers to believe the total cost of purchasing ingredients at Aldi for a typical festive dinner would be less than any other British grocer – rather than the 7 that Aldi had compared itself to.
It added that the Which? article said the discounter’s Christmas dinner cost just 4p less than Lidl’s, and that “as this difference was negligible, Which? decided to embrace the Christmas spirit by giving both of the discounters a festive food-pricing crown”.
“While Aldi was technically the cheapest, this was by a negligible amount, and we considered that it was information that was likely to influence consumers’ understanding of the claim and any transactional decision they might make because of it, since their choice of which supermarket to visit would also be impacted by other factors such as their relative distances or transport costs.
“We therefore considered the ad was misleading about the basis of the comparison in those regards.”
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A spokeswoman for Aldi said: “We are disappointed that the ASA has upheld this complaint based on an advertising technicality, but we remain confident that customers will make significant savings every time they shop with Aldi.”
Which? informed the advertising watchdog that it had not been involved in the way Aldi presented its report in its advertising.
A spokesman for the Which? said: “We support this decision by the ASA: consumers should not be subjected to potentially misleading advertising and it is right that the regulator is holding Aldi to account.
“We are disappointed that a Which? endorsement logo and our research was used in an advert that has broken the regulator’s rules on marketing and we have sought assurances from Aldi that it will not happen again.”
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