Tesco's ad spend in the UK 2018-2020

In 2020, grocery giant Tesco invested roughly 81.15 million British pounds in advertising in the United Kingdom. This expense marked a marginal increase on the previous year when ad investments stood at around 80.83 million pounds.

Tesco’s market position

Tesco PLC is a British grocery and general merchandise retailer founded in 1919 and headquartered in Hertfordshire, England. The company has dominated the UK market for the last quarter-century, with market shares rarely plunging below 25 percent. Despite mounting competition from Asda, Sainsbury's, and various German discounter chains, Tesco holds its place as the leading grocery store in Great Britain while also ranking among the most valuable UK brands overall.

Advertising in times of COVID

In 2020, Tesco ranked sixth among the top 10 advertisers in the UK. While the year was particularly eventful due to the changes in consumer demand and behavior, 2021 proved to be an even more turbulent ride for the company in terms of advertising. For one, Tesco launched its media and insight platform to deliver customer data to its network of suppliers and agencies for ad targeting purposes. But while interest in the new platform has reportedly been great, Tesco wrapped the year with some less favorable headlines on its Christmas ad campaign. The commercial, titled "This Christmas, Nothing's Stopping Us," and showing Santa Claus with a vaccination pass, became the most complained about ad of the year after receiving more than 1,500 complaints from viewers.