Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
Two teleshopping presentations, seen on Ideal World:
a. The first presentation, seen on 28 October 2025, featured a presenter describing and demonstrating features of the Invicta Sea Spider watch. On-screen text stated “8256083. Invicta Sea Spider VH63 Japanese Quartz 10ATM Black Dial 48mm Silver Stainless Steel Case Men’s Watch with Yellow Silicone Strap. LIMITED STOCK” and stated “COMPARISON PRICE” with the figure “£948.99” struck through. It further stated “PICK OF THE DAY PRICE £249.99 FREE DELIVERY. 6 X FLEXI-PAYMENTS OF £41.67”. The presenter presented the watch and stated “If you want to buy this watch elsewhere it’s expensive. It’s £948.83. It’s a lot of money. But tonight with a complimentary bottle of Greed we’re going nowhere near that. Are you ready? Already I got buyers trying to come in for it. Pricing please. We are under 250 for it. Wow compared to the 900 and nearly 50 pounds that we’re charging for it that’s nearly £700 saved. That’s a walloping great saving. That’s enormous.” The presenter further stated “I don’t make stuff up. I say it as it is. Lovely isn’t it, beautiful watch this […] Nearly £700 difference between the retail price of £948.83.” Additional on-screen text, beside an image of the product, stated “Price Reference: Sea Spider Men Model 44126 – Men’s Watch Quartz £948.83 *Direct Price Comparison: 08/10/2025”.
b. The second presentation, seen on 1 December 2025, featured a presenter describing and demonstrating features of the Roamer Searock watch. On-screen text stated “CYBER MONDAY SPECIAL OFFER – Searock Master 42mm Automatic Three-Hand Date Two-Tone Bracelet Sapphire Antireflection Glass Stainless Steel Swiss Watch… LIMITED STOCK…IDEAL WORLD PRICE” with the figure £1299.99 struck through. It further stated “CYBER MONDAY PRICE £799.99 FREE DELIVERY. 5 X FLEXI-PAYMENTS OF £160. CHOICES CHAMPAGNE, GREEN”. The presenter stated, “It’s a limited edition and it would retail at nearly £1000 […] Tonight, nowhere else on any television channel across the globe are they going to be able to show you a Searock Master Ocean fare at a price we’re about to do, not only that, they haven’t got them […] Now there is no more of this watch in the world […] What they’ve done is we believe the lowest ever price on the marketplace [...] We will have it on five flexes […] Just before I reveal the numbers, today this is about £1000 and that’s if you can get it. I mean it’s if you can get it, I don’t even think Roamer have got anymore. No there are no more, this is the last of the last if you will, so once these are gone they’re gone […] Right so get ready, three, two, one, at £1000 it would retail, we have got it for £160 […] Now I must tell you, we believe 100% we’re the only people that have the last of the stock of the Searock Master […] this is the first time ever any Swiss watch maker has allowed anybody to do the last in the world because people search them out […] Right just to tell you, they were £1299.99 […] now this is the last in the world, and when I say that statement Neil will verify this, this is really valuable, because when you’re doing a last in the world and this is Roamer of Switzerland, the watches automatically become collectible […] It would retail at just over, well we’ve got it at £1300. We actually tried to go today to look to an American dealer that had got it for £1200 but he hadn’t got any. There’s the dealer […] As far as we know we’re the only people now that have the remaining stock anywhere in the world […]” A screenshot of an unknown website appeared alongside the mention of the American dealer and stated that the product was “$1,319.00 USD = £998.17 Shipping calculated at checkout.”
Issue
1. In relation to ads (a) and (b), the complainant understood that the reference prices differed significantly from the prices at which the watches were generally sold and therefore challenged whether the claims could be substantiated and were misleading.
2. The complainant, who understood the watch was available at other retailers, challenged whether the claim in ad (b) that the product was the last available in the world could be substantiated and was misleading.
Response
1. & 2. Shop TJC Ltd t/a Ideal World stated that, at the time of broadcast for both ads (a) and (b), the comparison prices were based on manufacturer prices that were publicly available, and which they believed reflected genuine market prices. They said the presenters’ references to higher prices were framed as external market comparisons, not previous Ideal World selling prices, and had been intended to reflect the general market price at the time rather than speculative, historic or unrepresentative prices. They further stated they had conducted checks of publicly available pricing sources before broadcast for the watches in both ads, however, had found that both watches were not widely available at independent retailers. They therefore said that the manufacturer websites were the only verifiable sources of publicly available pricing for the watches at the time that they could rely on.
In relation to ad (a) they said the comparison price of £948.83 (shown on screen as dated 8 October 2025) reflected pricing publicly available via Invicta’s official website for the relevant model. They believed therefore that their selling price, “Pick of the Day”, of £249.99 was presented transparently and was compared against the external market pricing at that time.
In relation to ad (b) they said the reference price was taken from the Roamer brand website before broadcast. They provided screenshots of Roamer’s website and internal computer logs to evidence the source of the comparison price. They said the comparison was therefore based on the genuine manufacturer price available to consumers at the time and was not misrepresented.
Ideal World said that later changes to the manufacturer’s website pricing did not undermine the accuracy of the comparisons at the time the ads were broadcast. They said they had reviewed their internal processes and would improve the retention of dated screenshots and supporting documents for future price comparison claims.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA considered that in relation to ad (a) viewers would interpret the struck-through “COMPARISON PRICE” of £948.99 and the screenshot price of “£948.83 *Direct Price Comparison: 08/10/2025” to reflect the price at which the watch was generally sold across the market at the time of broadcast. We further considered that viewers would understand that the stated “Pick of the Day” price of £249.99 represented genuine savings against that price. The presenter reinforced that impression by stating, “If you want to buy this watch elsewhere it’s expensive. It’s £948.83. It’s a lot of money”, as well as quantifying the saving as “nearly £700 saved” and “Nearly £700 difference between the retail price of £948.83”.
In relation to ad (b) we noted an inconsistency in the original selling prices referred to by the presenters and on-screen text. Nevertheless, we considered that viewers would interpret either the struck-through figure and verbal references to £1299.99 or the screenshot price of £998.17 to reflect the price at which the watch was generally sold at the time. We further considered that viewers would understand that the “CYBER MONDAY PRICE” and “IDEAL WORLD PRICE” of £799.99 represented genuine savings against whichever of those prices they understood to be the price at which it was generally sold. The presenters reinforced that impression by stating multiple times that the watch would retail at or about £1000, that the Ideal World price would be found “nowhere else” and that they offered the “lowest ever price on the marketplace”.
BCAP guidance on “Teleshopping price indications and comparisons” explained that advertisers must ensure that comparative or illustrative prices, whether they were recommended retail prices (RRP), guide prices, or similar, were genuine and not likely to mislead. That applied both to explicit and implied comparisons. Broadcasters must hold documentary evidence to support price claims before transmission. The guidance further stated that RRPs or similar indications could only be quoted if the price did not differ significantly from the price at which the product had been generally sold. We considered that the use of an RRP was itself a claim rather than evidence of the prevailing market price. As such, Ideal World’s reliance on the RRPs, supported by single screenshots from the manufacturer’s websites, were not sufficient to demonstrate that the stated reference prices reflected the price at which the products were generally sold in the market at the time. Given that the watches were available at other retailers, we would have expected to see evidence of the prices charged more widely in the market and ensured that any RRP claim was based on those general selling prices. We understood Shop TJC were unable to locate verifiable sources where the watches were sold by independent retailers and could not access publicly available pricing that reflected the prices the watches were generally sold for at the time, and therefore they relied on the RRPs to substantiate their savings claims. However, in the absence of evidence of the prices at which the watches were generally sold at, quoting RRPs of the watches was not sufficient to support their savings claims.
Because we had not seen evidence to demonstrate that the watches were generally sold at £948.83 for the Invicta model in ad (a), or either £1299.99 or £998.17 for the Roamer model in ad (b), we concluded the comparison price and saving claims had not been substantiated and therefore were misleading.
On that point, ads (a) and (b) breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 (Substantiation), 3.18 (Prices) and 3.39 (Price comparisons).
2. Upheld
We considered the claims in ad (b) that the Roamer watch was “the last in the world” and that Ideal World were “the only people […] that have the remaining stock anywhere in the world” were absolute claims about market wide availability. We considered viewers would interpret those claims to mean that the watch could not be purchased from any other retailer at the time of broadcast. Ideal World had not provided evidence to demonstrate that the watch was not available elsewhere. We concluded therefore that the claims had not been substantiated and were misleading.
On that point, ad (b) breached BCAP Code rules 3.32 and 3.33 (Availability).
Action
Ads (a) and (b) must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Shop TJC Ltd t/a Ideal World not to make price, savings and limited availability claims in their ads unless they held adequate substantiation relating to stated reference prices and limited availability of the products.
