Is used when introducing a new product category the objective is to build primary demand?

Primary demand advertising is any advertising that promotes a product rather than a brand. It differs from brand advertising, which focuses solely on the brand. When you see an ad telling you to drink a Coke, the ad benefits The Coca-Cola Company. When you see an ad telling you to drink milk, all milk producers benefit.

Unless you've created a new product category without any competition yet, it's unlikely a primary demand advertising campaign is a good fit for your small business. However, it is something a small business can capitalize on when others are using this advertising model.

Primary advertising is also known as generic advertising because it creates a generic demand for products or product categories. An ad encouraging people to read more books is an example of primary advertising because it doesn't benefit any single author or publisher. If the ad campaign is successful, it could benefit everyone in the publishing industry. For this reason, it would be advantageous for publishers to pool their resources in such a campaign.

Primary advertising may be done by manufacturers, but it has also been done successfully by government agencies, trade organizations and agricultural groups. Such ads might tell consumers to buy diamonds, hire a chartered public accountant, eat more eggs, buy more milk, or consider becoming a police officer. These advertisements are usually short and run for a limited time.

A subset of primary demand advertising is frontier advertising, which is done exclusively by companies that have developed a new product for which there is no competition. As explained by Chegg, pioneer advertising is typically used in the introductory phase of the product's life cycle to educate consumers about the product.

The agricultural industry has been the source of some of the most successful generic advertising campaigns in the past 50 years. This may be because federal and state legislation gives farmers the ability to tax themselves to fund generic advertising – something that began back in 1935 to promote orange juice, according to the USDA's National Agriculture Library.

One of the most memorable campaigns was launched in the mid-'80s when the National Dairy Board, the American Dairy Association, and more than 24 state governments participated in a ​$71.7 million​ milk campaign with slogans that included "Milk, It Does a Body Good." Similar campaigns were launched over the next several years by other agricultural groups, such as beef producers with "Beef, Real Food for Real People" and pork producers with "Pork. The Other White Meat."

There are times when small businesses can run their own generic ads, but these are limited. If you owned a sporting goods store in a small town, for example, you could hook up with a local gym to promote physical fitness in your town. However, you'd be just as well off – if not better off – putting your business names on the ads, making it branded advertising, not primary demand advertising.

If someone is running a primary demand ad campaign in your industry, you may be able to capitalize on it for your small business. Consider a pioneering company like Apple. When Apple released the iPhone, a whole new industry in smartphone accessories exploded for products such as headphones, phone stands and selfie-sticks.

A similar thing happened when Apple released its first Apple Watch. Not only did consumers begin buying Apple products, but wrist-wearable fitness trackers too. Even traditional watches, from cheap trendy models to luxury watches, saw a resurgence in demand because the pioneering ads for the Apple Watch spawned a renewed interest in all sorts of watches, both digital and analog. Undoubtedly, many businesses are now watching what happens in the next year or two when Apple's augmented reality glasses are rumored to be released, suggests sources like TechRadar.

Primary demand is the demand for a particular product category or type rather than for a certain brand. It focuses on the benefits of a product without highlighting the advantages of using goods from one specific company.

Primary Demand vs Selective Demand

To communicate advertising messages, companies use two different approaches: primary and selective demand. If a certain brand tailors a message that depicts their company as the most suitable for their target audience, it’s using selective demand. On the contrary, if a brand focuses on the general product category rather than its brand identity, it’s a primary demand. Let’s discuss each of them in more detail.

Primary demand

This occurs when an advertising message aims at drawing more attention to the product, its type, or category without concentrating on getting a competitive advantage and promoting it. The message contains the benefits of buying general products without mentioning the superiority of one over its competitors.

As companies spend a lot on ads to sell their brands, targeting this type of demand occurs less often and only in specific situations. For example, when a company wants to introduce an innovative product to the market. In this situation, a marketer’s task is to present this product to the audience while focusing entirely on the product itself. The marketer should depict the product’s benefits and the way it works. Another example is a collaboration of industry members that aims at arousing the audience's interest in a particular product category.

Let’s take the “Pork. The Other White Meat” campaign, created in 1987, for example. This simple campaign aimed to encourage the consumption of pork as an alternative to turkey or chicken.

Is used when introducing a new product category the objective is to build primary demand?

Source: POPSUGAR

Selective demand

This demand occurs when advertisers try to persuade people to choose their brand from the hundreds of others in their niche. They create a message that highlights the specific features and benefits of their product. These features distinguish the brand’s products from competitors.

You can look at the message to identify whether it is a selective demand. Some companies use:

  • benefit positioning (to showcase the unique features of their products);
  • competitive positioning (to highlight the advantages of their products compared to other brands);
  • user positioning (to show the match between the benefits of their products and customer’s needs).

Now that you know the features of primary and selective demand, let’s take a look at the channels you can use to boost your primary demand.

How to increase primary demand

  1. Send email campaigns
  2. Create TV commercials
  3. Consider social media

You can consider several marketing channels to increase your primary demand. Here are three things you can do.

Send email campaigns

The 3.9 billion users make email marketing the channel with the highest engagement. You can increase primary demand by sending several emails to your leads to help your potential clients identify their problems, show how these problems affect their lives, and finally, offer a solution.

To make your emails more personal, you can use SendPulse’s personalization and segmentation features. You can segment your mailing list to only send emails to contacts with the right criteria.

Here you can see an example of a personalized email created with SendPulse. You can choose a ready-to-use email template as a starting point and design it to your liking.

Is used when introducing a new product category the objective is to build primary demand?

Create TV commercials

If you aim to reach a vast audience and build trust, you can consider creating TV commercials. Although many people might see TV ads as old-fashioned, they still show good results in terms of their overall reach.

Let’s take the 1992 "Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner" commercial, for example. Its purpose was to encourage the consumption of beef by describing its benefits for a healthy diet.

Is used when introducing a new product category the objective is to build primary demand?

Consider social media

According to We Are Social, there are 3.8 billion people worldwide who have accounts on social media platforms. So it’s worth considering using social media to increase primary demand. You can promote your products using posts, videos, stories, IGTV, paid ads, and influencer marketing.

Here you can see an example of the “Got Milk” campaign on Instagram. The creators posted a video informing subscribers about National Milk Day.

Is used when introducing a new product category the objective is to build primary demand?

This type of advertising is essential when you want to make your product more popular among consumers. You can achieve this goal by using various marketing channels to help you promote your product and increase the number of leads and customers you bring in.

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