The ASDA supermarket chain in Britain, which united with Wal-Mart to
introduce superstores to the United Kindom, has fallen into the same
misleading advertising scheme that its partner Wal-Mart created years ago
in the United States. Wal-Mart used to employ the slogan: “Always the low
price, always.” That misleading slogan brought down the wrath of the
National Advertising Review Board. The Board suggested to Wal-Mart that
they refrain from any advertising that implied that Wal-Mart prices were
“always the lowest.” During a court review of Wal-Mart pricing in an
Arkansas predatory pricing case, a judge found that Wal-Mart would “lift
its prices as and when competitors disappeared…”. Now in England, the
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has rapped ASDA’s knuckles over its
price claims, according to Reuters news service. An ASDA advertising
campaign comparing prices on a marketbasket of goods, suggested that its
prices were always cheaper. That upset Britain’s 4th. largest grocery
chain, Safeway. The ASA advertising watchdog agency concurred that the ASDA
claims were misleading, because ASDA was not comparing like to like in its
marketbasket pricing comparisons with Safeway. ASDA admitted that it made
some technical errors in its advertising, Reuters said.
ASDA can “always” claim that it learned its pricing strategies from its
U.S. partner, Wal-Mart, which also had to drop its “lowest” price claims in
the states. If shoppers want to help out their local communities, and keep
their money circulating locally, they have the option of staying away from
companies like ASDA and Wal-Mart “always”. For more info on the US
advertising case against Wal-Mart, get the book “Slam Dunking Wal-Mart” on
this website.
