Aldi mocks M&S for wine bottle gaff in garden furniture advert

A row between supermarket giants rumbles on after a certain premium grocer inadvertently promoted a product from a budget store rival. Eagle eyes spotted yesterday that an M&S advert showing garden furniture also featured a bottle of wine from their German competition Aldi.

Aldi took to X (formerly Twitter) to mock the company's choice of a bottle of Aldi's Specially Selected Côtes De Provence Blanc wine, placed directly in the middle of the garden table shot. They said: ‘@marksandspencer drink Aldi wine pass it on.”

Many users ridiculed M&S, joking that after spending £699 on that particular garden set they would expect something more expensive than a  £7.49 Aldi wine sat on top of it. Another commented: “It was all they could afford after that table splurge.”

Cameron from the Aldi X account responded: “We’ve never had that problem…”

Other users have suggested that this was a clever marketing ploy from M&S to get Aldi to reshare their content. “This is genius,” one commenter said.

However, the wine featured on the advert is currently sold out on the Aldi website, so perhaps M&S did a better job advertising for Aldi.

Beyond the jests on social media, the two stores have been the subject of high profile court battles over the last couple of years. One notable case accused Aldi of breaching copyright with their Cuthbert the Caterpillar, an impersonation of M&S’ famous Colin the caterpillar birthday cake. 

Following the case, exact details were not published except to say Cuthbert would not be returning in the same form as before. An Aldi spokesperson said: “Cuthbert is free and looking forward to seeing all his fans again very soon!”

Despite there being many knock off versions of Colin such as Curly from Tesco and Wiggles from Sainsburys, M&S have only filed legal action with Aldi over the matter. This has led shoppers to question what started such hatred between the companies.

Aldi also lodged an Appeal in January of this year against a ruling from the High Court that they had infringed M&S’s registered designs for a range of gin-based liqueurs. The row was based on a light up bottle of gin with gold flakes. However, in this case, the ruling was upheld and Aldi lost.