Viagra's saucy new campaign

By DAVID USBORNE

NEW YORK - The makers of the little blue pill called Viagra have taken an altogether more saucy tack in a new advertising campaign launched this week in the United States.

Gone are the days when coyness ruled the marketing of a drug that helps that condition called "erectile dysfunction".

Here is the reason: Viagra is facing some stiff competition.

For Pfizer, the giant pharmaceuticals firm that gave us the lozenge shaped pill, prudishness worked just fine while it had a 100 per cent monopoly.

At its launch six years ago Viagra was touted by, among others, Bob Dole, the former Republican senator and presidential candidate whose second name was never Casanova.

But the ride got tougher for Pfizer a year ago when competitors Cialis and Levitra appeared.

In recent months, Pfizer has watched its market share soften. It has responded with a new advertising agency and the new spots appearing on television and print media.

Conceived by the advertising giant McCann Erickson Worldwide, the US$100 million ($150 million) campaign goes under the slogan "Get back to mischief".

What that mischief is is still not spelled out, but little is left to the imagination.

The mischief is the devil's business. Hence the horns, stylised in the form of the V of Viagra, that sprout from heads of the men who appear in the new spots.

The first in a new series of television commercials now airing in the United States features a husband shopping with his wife, dutifully standing by as she browses the shoe shelves. Up go the horns when they switch their gaze to the lingerie section.

"Remember that guy who used to be called 'Wild Thing?' " an announcer asks. "The guy who wanted to spend the entire honeymoon indoors? Remember the one who couldn't resist a little mischief? Yeah, that guy. He's back." It ends with the more sober admonition, "Ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you."

Keeping its previous buttoned-down approach became less viable once the makers of Cialis, Lilly Icos, bought premium time in the Super Bowl broadcast last February with an ad featuring a late-middle aged couple in adjoining hot-tubs touching fingers. The announcer asked, "Will you be ready?"

Critics may counter that the drug makers are still dancing too delicately around the real message of their campaigns: sex is possible for guys with fickle equipment.

However, their problem is more than just managing the puritanical streak in mainstream America. They are also wary of appearing to encourage consumption of their pills for reasons other than erectile dysfunction.

Recent research has shown a huge rise in consumption of Viagra, especially among men aged from 18 to 45. While the numbers using Viagra for straightforward medical reasons has begun to slide, the research shows a 312 per cent jump in sales to men who are using the pill just for fun.

Meanwhile, McCann Erickson is enjoying the attention that its new Viagra ads are generating.

"What we're trying to dramatise is that a man doesn't have to compromise between the loving relationship he has now and being the 'wild guy' he was in his youth," a spokesman said. "He doesn't have to swap the self-esteem of maturity for youthful erections."

- INDEPENDENT