The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2026
John Lewis refused the ASA its sales data — two Black Friday saving ads got banned
John Lewis advertised a £150 MacBook saving and a £450 Zenbook saving; the laptop had been at full price one day. It refused to hand over sales data.
John Lewis · 2026-05-20
What happened
In November 2025 John Lewis ran two Black Friday ads: a Facebook ad for the MacBook Air with M2 — 'from £699. Price includes £150 saving' — and an online display ad claiming 'Save £450' on the ASUS Zenbook A14 Copilot+ PC. The ASA's automated ad monitoring challenged both reference prices.
John Lewis said £849 was the MacBook's usual price, based on a 12-month average sale price of £840.54, but supplied no sales volumes or pricing history, and declined to provide unit sales data, arguing it had no legal or CAP Code obligation to do so. Third-party tracking indicated the MacBook had been sold at £849 for a single day in July 2025. The Zenbook's £1,099 reference price had held for just 47 days, with the price fluctuating between £749 and £1,099 from March to November 2025.
On 20 May 2026 the ASA upheld both claims under CAP rules 3.1, 3.7 and 3.17: without at least three months of pricing history and sales data, neither saving was shown to be genuine. The retailer long known for its 'Never Knowingly Undersold' promise apologised for 'two errors which weren't picked up' when lowering prices to match competitors. The ads must not appear again.
Why it happened
- A savings claim is only as good as the pricing history behind it — John Lewis offered a 12-month average but no data, and the ASA reads silence as absence of proof.
- Refusing sales data on principle turned a checkable dispute into an automatic loss: with no evidence the regulator cannot verify the claim, so the claim fails.
- AI monitoring means Black Friday ads are screened without any complainant — one day at £849 in July was enough to sink a £150 saving in November.
The lesson
'Save £X' needs three months of pricing history behind it — John Lewis refused to show its data and lost both ads. The retailer that promised fair pricing was ruled misleading.
Aftermath
John Lewis apologised, saying its Never Knowingly Undersold price promise means it lowers thousands of prices weekly to match competitors, intensifying over Black Friday, and that it was sorry for the two errors that were not picked up. The ASA told it to substantiate future savings claims against the genuine usual selling price.
Sources
- ASA Ruling on John Lewis plc (A26-1326172)
- Glasgow Live: John Lewis apologises after being criticised in new ruling with Boots and Debenhams
- The Independent: The major retailers that misled shoppers with their 2025 Black Friday deals
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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