10 past 10, 8:20 or 9:41?

I have always wondered why the hands of a wristwatch — irrespective of the brand — are invariably set to 10:10. It is, in fact, one of the most ubiquitous features of wristwatch advertising and wristwatch photography. It doesn't matter if it is a humble Swatch, a storied Rolex, or an innovative Jaeger-LeCoultre—the hands are always set to 10:10, or very close to it. Watch manufacturers could easily have chosen a preferred watch setting as a differentiation, and owned it, but this is one visual representation from which no one wavers.  
 

I am told that behind this subliminal message is a phenomenon called “pareidolia”. The word has Greek roots (all the best words do!) and comes from “para”, which roughly translated means “beside” or “instead of”, and “eidolon”, which means an image or shape. The word refers to the tendency of the human mind to see meaningful patterns in visual images, which may or may not actually be meaningful themselves. The outstretched hands of the watch on the round dial at 10:10 are said to look like a smiley (yes!) that might actually make you more inclined to buy the watch. 
 

There is apparently a lot of psychology involved in the choice of 10:10. Researchers photographed 20 different watches, with the hands set to 10:10, 11:30, and 8:20, producing 60 pictures. The pictures were then shown to a group of 20 men and 26 women in the first run of the experiment, and 11 men and 12 women in the second run. The experiment found that the 10:10 setting produced the highest pleasure rating of all three settings, and it was also the only setting interpreted as a smiling face. The 8:20 setting, in fact, consumers said, made the watch look gloomy and sad. 
 

The tendency to use 10:10 was not established as the norm until the 1950s. Prior to that, watches were almost always set to a time of 8:20 (hence the choice of that setting in the experiment mentioned earlier), which had the aesthetic advantage of being symmetrical while at the same time not hiding the logo. At 10:10, the logo elements tend to get somewhat obliterated.
 

Timex digital watches, by the way, are always set to exactly the same time as their analog watches: 10:09:36. Interestingly, Casio’s G-Shocks have their digital displays set to 10:58:50 across the board and the date displayed is always Sunday, June 30th. Why June 30th?  June of 1957 was the month and year in which the Casio Computer Company was founded, and that too on the 30th, a Sunday. So that little bit of company history is echoed on every Casio watch. 
 

Now to 9:41. I am sure you have noticed that Apple products in marketing materials and screenshots always seem to be set at 9:41 am. It’s not a random coincidence for sure —there’s a deliberate and historical reason behind this seemingly arbitrary time choice. The 9:41 tradition can be traced back to the iconic Steve Jobs era. During product keynotes, the  Apple co-founder aimed to unveil the star attraction around 40 minutes into his presentation. To ensure a close match between the time displayed on the product and the actual time on audience members’ watches, Apple initially set the time to 9:42 am in product photos.
However, during a rehearsal for the  original iPhone launch, things didn’t go exactly according to plan. Jobs unveiled the phone a minute earlier than anticipated — at precisely 9:41 am. The displays were then re-calibrated to 9:41 instead of 9:42. So Apple even today coordinates its keynotes in such a manner that “the big reveal” kicks in at about the 40-minute mark. At 9:41 to be precise. The secret of the “magic time” has now become a company protocol since the iPad was unveiled. 
 

More on 10:10. There is a region of the brain that gets activated when anything even slightly face-like comes into focus — it specialises in facial recognition. This brain part, the fusiform facial area (FFA) is located at the bottom back of the brain (the ventral surface of the temporal lobe, for all you neuroanatomy fans out there). An interesting feature of the FFA is that simple shapes, like emoji, seem to activate it faster than actual faces and the theory goes that evolution favoured the development of an ability to rapidly read facial expressions and determine emotions from minimal stimuli. The 10:10 configuration adopted by the watch industry seems to have learnt its biggest lesson on consumer delight from the FFA. 

The writer is chairman of Rediffusion