Dive Brief:
- A new ad agency is taking a direct approach to selling Viagra.
- Unlike the metaphor-strewn ads of yore, the new Viagra commercial features an attractive woman telling men that erectile dysfunction is common and treatable.
- Viagra, from drug giant Pfizer, had $1.88 billion in sales in 2013.
Dive Insight:
The "Age of Knowing" ads for erectile dysfunction drug Viagra have relied on metaphors for years, with guys of a certain age doing manly-man things like, um, harnessing their horses to a pickup truck that's stuck in the mud. The implication (well, one implication) is that if you're smart enough to do that, you're smart enough to ask your doctor for Viagra if you need it.
But the new spots feature an attractive woman telling the camera, "You know what? Plenty of guys have this issue." That's a considerably more direct approach. After all, if you'd watched the old ads with the sound down, you might have thought Viagra had something to do with car radiators. (By the way: Style points awarded to the old ads for using Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning" as the background song -- although the lyrics probably deserved closer scrutiny when the choice was made.)
