January 16, 2017

A TV ad, which formed part of the “everyday amazing” campaign from Aldi, showed various fantastical scenarios, including an elderly women skydiving holding a roast chicken and a scene showing a man suspended from a height over a river holding a bottle of Aldi champagne. Another scene depicted a scuba diver reading a newspaper underwater and saying, “How’s this for amazing? Aldi’s Specially Selected Scottish Salmon is RSPCA assured”.

The ad attracted complaints from the Scottish charity Save Our Seals and four other viewers that it misleadingly implied that Aldi’s salmon were caught in the wild. The ASA rejected the complaints. It noted that the ad did not contain any express claims regarding the provenance of the supermarket’s salmon. It also considered that while the claim about the produce being RSPCA Assured did not make it clear that the brand’s salmon were farm-reared, the reference in itself was unlikely to imply that Aldi’s salmon were caught in the wild.

The ASA added that it was unclear whether the diver was in a river, the sea, a lake or an artificially constructed body of water. Although the preceding scene featured a man standing on a bridge over a wide river, because of the way in which the scenes were knitted together, changing locations from one moment to the next, the ASA considered viewers were unlikely to draw the conclusion that he was in the river below the man on the bridge. It also noted that the fish were not being caught or captured.

For those reasons, the ASA considered the average viewer was unlikely to interpret the ad to mean that Aldi’s salmon were caught in the wild. As such, the ad was not found in breach of BCAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.2 (Misleading advertising). To read the ASA Ruling on Aldi Stores Ltd (11 January 2017) in full, click here.