Bernstein Research’s senior analyst Bruno Monteyne has described a new Aldi advertising campaign, which compares the price of a basket of its groceries with that of groceries bought in Morrisons, as misleading and disingenuous, in that Aldi’s assortment of products is entirely private label, whereas its rival’s is made up of market-leading brands.
Among the products singled out by Aldi, which together are 37 per cent less expensive than those purchased in Morrisons, are washing powder and olive oil. The Aldi basket costs £11.42, while the Morrrisons counterpart amounts to £18.19.
"Using a comparison between own-label products and branded to suggest Aldi prices are cheaper is misleading and disingenuous," said Monteyne. "Every supermarket has private-label and branded items as well, and they could claim a similar difference in their own store. We all know private-label goods are cheaper than branded."
A Morrisons spokesperson told TheGuardian.com, “No one will be fooled by the way they have picked a handful of premium-branded products such as Tropicana and compared them to their own-label products such as Del Rivo.”
According to The Guardian, the German discounter defended its promotional method on the basis that the quality of the two baskets would be very similar.
It said, "We believe the comparison is fair and our products are comparable to brands in terms of quality. Last year, we won over 350 product awards and were second only to Waitrose in terms of the number of Which? best-buys we were awarded.
"The fact is that customers wouldn’t be coming to us in their droves if the product quality wasn’t comparable. Our commitment is simple: on brand or own label, we won’t be beaten on price. We will always be the cheapest."
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
