Asda has promised a "radically different" TV advertising campaign from April, as it seeks to become the "voice of the people".

The drive, which was unveiled at a business briefing this week, will be spearheaded by new group marketing director Rick Bendel.

"We've always been the voice of the people," said Bendel. "The new advertising campaign will be all about our culture, our people, our way of working."

News of the campaign came as a new marketing slogan was revealed. 'There's no place like Asda', has started to appear at the foot of newspaper ads alongside messages about Asda staff often praising them for their involvement in community initiatives.

The new slogan has raised speculation that Asda's 'More for you for less' slogan is to be scrapped only a year after it was introduced. However, an Asda spokeswoman said it was not abandoning it "at this moment in time".

At the business briefing, chief executive Andy Bond underscored Asda's commitment to the community, saying that it wanted to become the "local champion".

Asda would introduce new-style service counters, with products tailored to local areas and would also be getting back into what it called "retailtainment", said Bond. New-style cafés would be rolled out nationwide, while 18 new superstores and 10 Asda Livings would open this year.

Commenting on planning issues, Bond said he was optimistic the 'needs test' would be abolished as a result of the Barker Review. The Competition Commission's focus on local markets should help its expansion plans in future, he claimed.

Though he did not rule out entry into convenience, he said: "Convenience is not the cake, it's just the icing."

In a dig at Sainsbury's, which has increased sales at the expense of profits according to many analysts, he said: "We have good like-for-likes but have recovered sales while still growing profits."

Availability had improved by three percentage points to 97.5%, he added.

Admitting that Asda had been the worst of the big four for fresh food, standards were now comparable after a multimillion pound investment, he claimed.

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