ASA Adjudication on Joseph & Thomas Windmills Ltd

Ad

A national press ad, for a watchmaker, stated “Made in England - a range of hand wound mechanical watches crafted in platinum, 18ct gold and sterling silver”.

Issue

The complainant objected that the claim "Made in England" was misleading, because although the watches were assembled in England, he believed most of the components were made abroad.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Joseph and Thomas Windmills (J&T Windmills) said they had obtained Copy Advice from CAP and were advised that, in order to justify the claim, the watch must last have undergone substantial change in England: for instance, it must have been assembled there.  J&T Windmills said that reflected DTI guidance in accordance with the Trade Descriptions Act which stated that "... goods shall be deemed to have been manufactured or produced in the country in which they last underwent a treatment or process resulting in a substantial change".  

J&T Windmills acknowledged that the component parts were not made in England.  They explained that the watches were designed at the London head office, developed into prototypes in China and the samples were then refined at an assembly facility in Essex.  They said the component parts were sourced from different countries; the basic movement came from a Swiss manufacturer, but only in its raw, unfinished form, known as "chablon".  The chablon was subsequently engraved, tested, and the watches assembled and quality controlled by specialist watchmakers at the Essex assembly facility.  They said their watchmakers decorated the movement with bespoke Windmills "plates", a laborious and manually intensive task, seated the dial on the movement and fixed and set the watch hands in a careful and time consuming process.  They asserted that only skilled watchmakers were able to carry out that process.  After testing the full "casing up" (assembly) process was undertaken where watchmakers inserted the movement into the case, fitted the crown to the stem and wound the watch fully, and after a further 48-hour testing process they approved the watch for packaging and despatch.  

J&T Windmills pointed out that, although there were no EU regulations governing trade between Member States, there were regulations dealing with trade with developing countries that stipulated conditions for products to be regarded as manufactured in a particular Member State, and their product complied with those. They supplied a copy of the conditions, which stated "Manufacture in which the value of all the materials used does not exceed 40% of the ex-works price of the product".  They explained that, for a product to be deemed of UK origin, up to 40% of its value could come from material that did not originate in the UK.  They sent a schedule that showed the total value of all elements that comprised the ex-works price of their watches.  They argued that the preponderant English value of the content of the watches was demonstrated by the fact that, on average, throughout the whole range, the value of components sourced abroad was only 34% of the ex-works price.

They believed there was no realistic prospect of readers being misled, particularly when the prestigious nature of the product and the extensive information provided in the brochure enclosed with every watch were taken into account.  

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the individual components of the watches, including the key mechanical part the movement were sourced from abroad.    We also noted, however, the watches were designed and assembled in England.  We understood that the country of manufacture or country of production was legally defined as being where the product last underwent substantial change.  We noted J&T Windmills had been advised by CAP that assembly was an example of such a change.  We consulted the British Horological Federation (BHF) who confirmed that the use of foreign movements was common practice in the watch and clock trade, and that labour and parts would provide substantial added value to the final product.  The BHF also pointed out that the finished product would have a different Tariff code from the imported stand alone movement, and that that change of code could be assumed to constitute a substantial change.  We considered that consumers would see the assembly process, which tailored and refined the product to J&T Windmills' exacting specifications and was a manually intensive and time consuming process, as a significant part of the production process and would not assume that the individual components were necessarily manufactured in England.  We concluded that the claim was unlikely to mislead.    

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)