The Sainsbury’s complaint said that a digital Tesco poster, seen on 4 September 2024, featured a misleading comparison between the Tesco Clubcard and Nectar loyalty card scheme.
The poster stated that customers receive £1 from 100 Clubcard points and 50p from 100 Nectar points, with the strapline “Clubcard gives you more to spend on your groceries than Nectar”.
In the small text, the poster added: “Clubcard points are worth 2x the value of Nectar points when converted for spend at Tesco and Sainsbury’s respectively.”
In response to the complaint, Tesco told the ASA that consumers would view the advert as making a specific comparison between the conversion value of Tesco’s Clubcard points and Sainsbury’s Nectar points for spend on groceries. Therefore, the retailer argued that it was not misleading to advertise and highlight specific elements of a loyalty scheme.
Tesco also re-iterated that it is commonplace to distinguish between the collection of points and spend of points as separate benefits and features of loyalty schemes, and argued that customers had a good understanding of the differences that could arise between loyalty schemes across the retail sector.
After weighing this response, the ASA decided not to uphold the complaint. The body said that it believed consumers would understand the ad to mean that, if they exchanged the same number of points using the respective loyalty card schemes, they would be worth twice as much to spend on groceries at Tesco than at Sainsburys.
“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 ruling read.
“The focus of the ads was on comparing a specific aspect of the two loyalty card schemes, namely, the conversion of collected points to spend on groceries.”
Asked for a comment on the ruling, a Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “Nectar offers great value across a wide range of products with customers earning points on every pound spent and Nectar Prices offering savings of up to £12 off a larger shop.”
Food Manufacture has also reached out to Tesco for comment.
