Watch and clock adverts

[dinsdale]

Just flicking through a leaflet from a jewlers (wanting to buy the Mrs a new watch) i noticed that every picure the watch is at either 10:10 or 13:50. Just wondering if there is a reason for this.

[kempie]

Probably based on the idea that this is the most aesthetically pleasing (and therefore saleable) position of the hands on the clock face, i.e the the symmetry of the position and that the face looks 'happy' (as opposed to a 'sadder' twenty past eight, for example).

[SteveD]

Possibly also to ensure that the hands do not obscure the manufacturer's name.

[squarebear]

It's an old sales trick to make the watch look as though it is smiling and therefore more pleasing to the eye. It has been used, and still is used, by watch sales people for years.

A quick flick through the Argos catalogue or your Sunday paper's magazine will nearly always show the clock at ten past ten or ten to two.

It is so deep imbedded in sales that even when digital watches were introduced, they still invariably show 10:10 as the time.

[dinsdale]

Thanks for that guys. One less thing on my list of things to worry about

[reinganum]

Sorry I didn't get to this one earlier, but the 10.10 timing for watches has been going for at least 50 years, if not longer. However, I noticed when looking in jewellers' windows when I was a boy, that clocks, as opposed to watches, would uniformly be set to 9.23. I never found out why.

The 10.10 setting for watches seemed to be quite obvious, especially as the (sweep) second hand would invariably be shown at 30 seconds; it was to display all the hands to best effect.