Supermarket ads 'misleading'

Advertisements claiming Pak'N Save supermarket has had New Zealand's lowest food prices for nine years running were exaggerated and misleading, the Advertising Standards Complaints Board has ruled.

Complaints were made by Progressive Enterprises - which runs Countdown, Woolworths and Foodtown supermarkets - against newspaper, radio and television advertisements made by Foodstuffs (Auckland) and a newspaper advertisement by Foodstuffs (Wellington) Co-operative Society - two of the companies which run Pak'N Save supermarkets.

The advertisements made various claims about Pak'N Save, including "NZ's lowest food prices for nine years running", "cheapest supermarket for the ninth year running" and "Still - NZ's lowest overall grocery prices".

The radio advertisement named Countdown as a comparison and said "see, our prices are lower than yours".

The Foodstuffs (Auckland) advertisements noted the basis of the claims was an "independent price survey" reported in the Sunday Star-Times on October 3.

The Foodstuffs (Wellington) advertisement referred to a "leading consumer survey".

The survey in question was a Consumers' Institute Survey for 2004, but the law precludes the institute's findings being used in advertisements.

The complainant said the advertisements were misleading and made unsubstantiated blanket claims.

It said specific claims in the advertisements were factually incorrect as Countdown in Dunedin was the cheapest in three of the nine years claimed.

The panel ruled all the advertisements contained "exaggerated claims, which were misleading to the consumer" and breached the authority's Code of Ethics.

- NZPA