Primary and Selective demand are the terms used in the context of advertising and many people get confused by these terms and consider both the terms as same but in reality, it is not the case and if primary demand is north than selective demand is south implying that they both are completely different from each other. In order to understand both the concepts, one should look at the differences between primary demand and selective demand –
Difference between Primary Demand and Selective Demand
Meaning
Primary demand refers to that demand which is intended to drive interest in the product irrespective of the brand of the product while selective demand refers to that demand which is intended to drive interest in the particular brand of any product as compared to competitors
Example
An example of primary demand advertising is when car manufacturers together advertises that how car is beneficial as compared to two-wheelers by mention advantages of owning cars so that more and more people switch from two-wheeler to four-wheelers thus giving business to the whole car industry while an example of selective demand advertising is when BMW or Toyota advertises about the unique features and quality of their cars as compared to other cars so that customers buy their car rather than buying other cars.
Frequency of Advertising
In case of primary demand advertising the time frame of it is less and also it is done one or two times while as far as selective demand is concerned the time frame of its advertising is more and it is done multiple times so as to attract consumers towards the brand of the company. In simple words, primary demand advertising is like leap year, because just like leap year comes after 4 years similarly primary demand advertising is not done frequently.
Scope
The scope of primary demand is wide as this form of advertising covers all the companies operating in the industry while the scope of selective demand is narrow as it is limited to the company which is promoting its own brand.
Static and Dynamic
Primary demand is static as the reason due to which consumers use products of the industry will remain more or less same, hence in the above example the main reason behind people using cars is due to problems faced by them while driving two-wheelers while selective demand is dynamic as features of product keep on evolving and that is the reason why companies keep changing their advertisement strategy when it comes to selective demand for the product.
As one can see from the above that primary demand and selective demand are different from each other and as far as the company is concerned selective demand has more importance as compared to primary demand and that is the reason why companies tend to place more emphasis on selective demand advertising.