By Vurdlak on June 3, 2009, with 86 Comments

Smiling watch illusion
I have just remembered this cheap little trick a friend of mine, Boris told me once. Try looking at any watch store window, or if you are inpatient, and wish to check this right now, you can use Google image search. Enter the search term “watch”, and search for wrist watches or clocks. You will notice that 90% of the results (if not all of them); all the analog watches have their hands set on the exact same time – 10:10 (or 22:10 if you prefer). This is NO accident. Sellers do their best to comfort the buyers. Even if it takes making watches smile back at you. Unbelievable, is it? Well, marketers will do just about anything to sell their stuff. Even stranger is that this cheap trick actually works!

Sad watch illusion
Look at the both images in this article. If you liked these two watches, which one would you buy first? Just to remind you, they are both the same. Its just that the second image was rotated by 180 degrees. Weird, huh?






(41 votes)
tks
I would buy the happy one because the numbers aren’t upside-down.
Hahaha
Another reason for the 10:10 is so all the watches in a catalogue would show the same time. Buyers thought they looked broken when they all showed different times.
Hi, nice article and watches. A lot of interesting stuff.
This isn’t true. The hands are in that position because they don’t cover the manufacurer’s logo.
i agree with alex, its so you can see the name of the watch! my brother in law did advertising for Timex in the 80′s and was told the time “10 minutes before 2″ was so you could see the Timex name!!