The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2026
Mathem's 'now equally cheapest' price-match ad ruled misleading
Mathem's 'Nu lika billigast på vardagen' ad blurred whether it matched competitors or its own prices — RO saw two readings and called it misleading.
Mathem i Sverige AB · 2026-06-16
What happened
Mathem ran a display ad on expressen.se showing a bunch of bananas with the headline 'Nu lika billigast på vardagen' ('Now equally cheapest on everyday items') and the line 'Same price as in the store. But without going to the store', plus a black label reading 'Price match — Over 500 items'.
Two complainants said the ad was misleading: the word 'cheapest' implied Mathem was generally the cheapest on everyday groceries, and the ad did not state the claim applied only to a selected set of stores.
Mathem argued 'lika' (equally) qualified the superlative into price parity, and that the prominent 'Prismatch — Över 500 varor' marking made clear the promise covered a curated selection rather than the whole range.
The Reklamombudsmannen assessed the ad on its own and found the message unclear: a consumer could read 'billigast' either as matching competitors' lowest prices or as matching Mathem's own previous prices. The ambiguity itself made the ad misleading under Article 5 of the ICC Code.
Why it happened
- The headline offered two readings — 'cheapest at the market' or 'cheapest at our own store' — and the ad never resolved which
- Relying on a landing page to clarify the price-match scope was ignored, because each ad unit is judged on its own
- An ambiguous superlative is not saved by a crowded 'price match — 500 items' label that pins the claim to neither reading
The lesson
A superlative with two possible meanings is a misleading claim. If 'cheapest' could mean matching competitors or your own prices, the ad must say which — the landing page will not fix the headline.
Aftermath
Reklamombudsmannen held the Mathem ad misleading under Article 5 of the ICC Code, in a unanimous opinion, because the average consumer could not tell whether the price claim compared to competitors or to the advertiser's own prices.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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