On 15 April, a number of the UK’s leading supermarkets including Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco announced a round of petrol cuts.
Asda Petrol kicked off the price war by announcing a 2p reduction per litre of petrol, and Sainsbury’s and Tesco announced price reductions soon after. Asda also challenged its competitors to alter their pricing policies so that consumers aren’t offered different prices in different areas of the country.
Using YouGov’s brand monitoring tool, BrandIndex, we can see that Asda is benefitting from consistently having the cheapest petrol and diesel prices and from having the same prices across all of its forecourts, irrespective of location.
When comparing consumer perception of Asda Petrol and Tesco Petrol since July, it is possible to see the gains Asda has made in relation to one of its closest rivals.
Interestingly, on 2 July 2012, Asda Petrol and Tesco Petrol had very similar Value scores, with Tesco Petrol slightly ahead of Asda Petrol on 13.8 compared to 13.6. However as of 15 April 2013, Asda Petrol had significantly widened the gap with Tesco Petrol, with a value score of 7.9 compared to 1.8.
Although both Asda and Tesco Petrol have suffered declining value scores over the course of this period, presumably due to rising fuel costs generally, Asda Petrol has nevertheless significantly widened the gap with Tesco Petrol for consumer perception of value.
