Asda steals Tesco's thunder with print ad spoiler tactic
A major Tesco national press campaign to position the supermarket as "Britain's biggest discounter" has been hijacked by bitter rival Asda.
Through its media agency, Initiative, Tesco booked a full-colour
campaign in all of Wednesday's popular and mid-market newspapers, taking
all available colour ad slots in the first 20 pages of each title.
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However, Asda booked a spoiler campaign to run in the first full-page
colour ad slots available following the Tesco spots. Its ads claimed
that Asda sells 3,457 products cheaper than Tesco.
One agency press director said the Tesco campaign, across The Sun, Daily
Mirror, Daily Star, Daily Mail and Daily Express, would have cost in the
region of £450,000. It would have cost Asda, through its media
agency Carat, around £120,000 to run the spoiler ads, he
added.
The source suggested that a client such as Tesco would usually have
category exclusivity built into such a campaign to prevent knocking
ads.
Initiative said it did not demand category exclusivity because the
campaign carries a specific brand message from Tesco. A spokeswoman
said: "We are incredibly happy with our campaign, the client is very
happy with the campaign and the Asda campaign is not a spoiler."
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