A Lidl leaflet inserted into a national newspaper for the supermarket’s Black Friday sale has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for failing to substantiate savings claims.
Aldi believed that the quoted recommended retail prices (RRPs) differed ‘significantly’ from the prices at which the items were generally sold.
The savings claims, advertised in November of last year, included a Sharp 42″ Full HD Android TV with a price of £259 and an RRP of £409.99 and an “Emma Original Mattress (double)” with a price of £329 and an RRP of £799.
Lidl responded to the ASA ban by stating that the prices in the leaflet were the prices at which the products were ‘generally sold’. The discounter believed consumers generally understood the meaning of RRPs and explained that they had used them to ‘avoid suggesting’ that the products had previously been sold by Lidl at the original higher price.
READ MORE: ASA bans ‘misleading’ Lidl discount ad
Prior to publishing the Black Friday Leaflet, the prices were also validated by their buying team to ensure that they were genuine.
Lidl also reportedly provided the ASA with screenshots from manufacturers’ and other retailers’ websites showing prices for the advertised products around the time the ad appeared.
Despite this however, the advertising watchdog found that most of the products and their accompanying price comparison examples were ‘insufficient’ to demonstrate that the products were generally sold at the RRPs claimed in the ads.
The ASA added: “For those reasons, we concluded that the RRP and savings claims for those products had not been substantiated and were misleading.”
“The ads must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Lidl Great Britain Ltd to ensure that that future references to RRPs reflected the price at which the products concerned were generally sold. We also told them to ensure that they held adequate evidence to substantiate their savings claims.”
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