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How is PET different from real world Marketing?

Ok, I received the newsletter for the forthcoming PET course today so also felt compelled to start a discussion here. Although I asked about this course while in Bangalore last month but then nothing was concrete. Actually now the situation is different.. why? CAUSE I'VE BEEN THINKING, more so after watching webcast by Dr. Schaffer on PET and the rationale behind this transition from just usability to user experience.

Well I already have on a daily basis, numerous discussions or rather disagreements over PET with one of my dear dear friend/colleague, so I thought why not deep-fry more brains here. So here goes..

Well, I know PET is a buzz word these days and everyone talks about it, but what is it actually?
Persuasion for Emotion & Trust - is this not what marketers do in real world already?

How do we segregate PET from marketing (if we can) or should we say it is actually a part of marketing. Ads like Got Milk or Absolute Vodka were done much before anyone knew the term PET but marketeers have been practicing this for ages. eg. the latest good one being the ZUZU's from Vodafone trying to show the connect between Vodafone and your life's emotions. Not to forget, Tata Nano's presentation where first the pictures of the 'Hamara Bajaj ads' were shown (which were great then & now looks like a safety hazard) and then continued to show his product.

Well, you've read enough about my thoughts so do let me know your. It would be useful also to have comments from faculties of the forthcoming PET course. Thanks in advance.

Tags: &, course, emotion, for, hfi, marketing, pet, pursation, trust

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Comment by Eric Schaffer on June 11, 2009 at 5:45pm: Oh... and 'Real World Marketing' of course uses methods of influence. In teaching the course senior marcom folks who attend often say they know 30% of the methods included. But there are also a lot of cool things you can do because of the power of the interactive media. So PET Design has to go well beyond the common priming, framing, and conditioning of the marketing world.

Comment by Eric Schaffer on June 11, 2009 at 5:43pm: Oh good grief! PET is HARDLY new!!! The usability field goes back to 1943. The PET field (meaning psychologists formally persuading people for commercial means) goes back to 1920 (see Dr. John Watson). I published on emotional aspects of computers in 1981. NOT NOT NOT NEW!

But what is important is that PET is the current differentiator. So we spent a few decades working to make software easy for people to use. That was and is hard. It is easy to be hard and hard to be easy. But today companies are getting decent at classic usability work. So once you can enter all the stores and check out without popping a blood vessel.... that becomes just expected. And it is not a differentiator. The differentiator is PET today. How do i deal with the emotional aspect of design. We need to be able to follow a systematic process and apply tools that ensure that people will WANT to use our application. They will want to buy, vote, ask their doctor, or even just come back.

Take a look at this example. From a classic usability point of view having lots of sold out choices is silly. I can't DO anything with those! I would remove them. But from a PET Design viewpoint they trigger scarcity and are likely to sell more. Fun stuff this. :)

Comment by Girish Dhulekar on June 10, 2009 at 12:58am: I think a few insights on the PET course itself would also help.

Comment by Girish Dhulekar on June 9, 2009 at 1:05pm: Thanks Jyoti, I am fine and thankfully after the CUA course things have been different - both at professional and on the perspective level.

On the PET thing, although I do understand what Bhavinee is refering to regarding the target audiance but I am still not sure or should I say convinced on the technique part. Would be great if you could give me some more insight on this please.

Comment by Bhavinee Vyas on June 9, 2009 at 3:21am: I think one attendee at a recent PET course conducted in Mumbai put it nicely when talking about the 'single most valuable insight I took away from this course.' He said, "So far, I've been working on my web site to target the logical, or higher, brain. Now I know I should be talking to the lizard brain!"

Comment by Jyoti Kumar on June 8, 2009 at 1:30am: Hey Girish!
Nice to meet you again.
How are things at your end?

Yes you are correct that PET is not new. What is new is the techniques available for persuading users online. So you know fo zozo but do you also know of 'How to create Zozzo's for the digital world?' What are the researches that have gone behind persuading the online users to buy something or become loyal to the site they are buying? These are somethings that are covered in PET.