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Would Tesco be off its trolley to drop Dotty? Sir Terry Leahy has a nagging suspicion it might be. Which is why the supermarket's chief executive is said to be hedging his bets before having her check out for the last time.

His hesitancy about giving full endorsement to an alternative campaign is understandable. For ten years, TV viewers have delighted in watching Prunella Scales' character inflict regular torture on ever-cheerful and ever-helpful Tesco staff.

Who can forget Dotty demanding to exchange a fresh trout because she doesn't like its sullen expression or insisting that she "can't be bought" when a check-out is opened for her so she doesn't have to queue?

Certainly, Dotty's eccentricities have paid handsome dividends. She has helped catapult Tesco to market leadership and deliver an incremental operating profit of £130 million. Every £1 spent on advertising has brought a £2.25 return. It's an astonishing record. But actors age and the Dotty saga grows ever more difficult to keep fresh.

If Dotty dies, her legacy will be a perception of Tesco as a highly customer-focused retailer - a world away from the early 80s when its stores were still piling it high and selling it cheap. The change in positioning has been steered by Tim Mason, who was appointed as the supermarket's marketing operations director in 1993.

Determined to seize market leadership, the company began by upgrading its stores and the quality of its products. However, consumers continued to compare Tesco's offering unfavourably with the more sophisticated fare at Sainsbury's.

As recently as 1990, Tesco had still not managed to dent its rival's dominance. It's a measure of how far the company has come since then that the Dotty campaign picked up the IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix in 2000, the year the judges were being led by Sir George Bull, the Sainsbury's non-executive chairman.

It was the late Dudley Moore who started Tesco advertising's association with celebrities and its concerted effort to convince shoppers that whatever Sainsbury's could do, Tesco could do better as well as matching its rival for quality.

Moore was cast as a Tesco buyer who, in scouring the world for an elusive flock of free-range chickens, discovers other quality products to add to the Tesco range.

The "quest for quality" campaign, which ran for two years from 1990, successfully set out Tesco's quality agenda. However, it was agreed that the advertising needed to move on and highlight the Tesco shopping experience.

Enter Dotty Turnbull, the shopper most check-out girls would happily strangle. In reality, she was there to test Tesco to its limits and give its staff the chance to shine.

Based around the theme of "every little helps", the campaign acknowledged that while not everything in life is perfect, Tesco was doing its best to make shopping easier.

"We actually took inspiration for the creation from real-life experiences of Tesco staff," Paul Weinberger, the Lowe chairman who has long had creative command of Tesco's campaigns, said at the time.

"We can all relate to the universal truth of the 'shopper from hell' whether they're our mum, a relative or a friend," Russ Lidstone, the Lowe planning director, says. "We feel for the Tesco staff but, moreover, we admire and respect their ability to respond to the challenges laid down by Dotty."

Rumour has it that Dame Maggie Smith was originally considered for the part of Dotty. In the end, though, the role went to Scales, who was not only a leading British actress but also already well known to TV audiences thanks to her role as the formidable Sybil in Fawlty Towers.

In his newly published book, Celebrity Sells, Hamish Pringle, the IPA's director-general, cites inspired casting and the ability of the main characters in the Dotty films to reach a broad range of Tesco's target audience as the reasons for the campaign's success.

Dotty clicks with mature and traditional women who see her shopping skills as important to her family.

Meanwhile, Kate, her exasperated daughter, played by Jane Horrocks, strikes a chord with younger and more independent women who, if they have to go to the supermarket, want excellent produce, efficient service and good value, Pringle says.

The introduction of Kate's husband (John Gordon Sinclair) allowed Tesco to connect with male consumers as well as creating a new line in "mother-in-law" jokes.

Scales believes the success of the Dotty films lie in their authenticity.

"I've never said anything in them I don't know to be true," she says.

Whether or not Dotty has had her last payday remains to be seen. One suggestion is that Tesco could stay with the format but evolve it by phasing out the leading character and introducing new ones.

"The Dotty commercials aren't difficult to do," a senior creative who has worked on the business at Lowe says. "But they are very difficult to do brilliantly."