WSJ Jun 17 Ad News
Advertising
Just What Goes in a Viagra Ad?
Early Reports Say Dancing Couples
By SALLY GOLL BEATTY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Pfizer is preparing a consumer ad campaign for Viagra even though it is already one of the fastest-selling prescription drugs ever.
The campaign, slated to start in the fall, will be supported by material sent to doctors' offices, people familiar with the plan say. Pfizer, based in New York, declined to confirm that it plans consumer ads, and wouldn't say what they might look like.
But a sneak preview is already on view in a wave of ads that began appearing this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and other medical journals. They feature a glossy eight-page photo spread of older couples dancing cheek to cheek. The opening page spotlights a couple's dancing feet. Little arrows sketch out the pattern of a two-step. Underneath is a photo of the now-familiar little blue anti-impotence pill, tilting forward. The headline: "Introducing New Viagra, the Simple New Step to Improve Erectile Function."
"Pfizer is saying it's a medical condition, and it's a medical condition that affects the quality of life of not just the man, but the partner," says Pfizer spokesman Andy McCormick.
Why spend money to promote a drug that already stars in television talk shows and weekend cocktail-party chatter? And are consumer-oriented ads a good idea when thousands of healthy men have started taking Viagra to enhance sex -- despite Pfizer's assurances that it is ineffective except in cases of impotence?
There is also the issue of the 16 reported deaths among Viagra patients, many of whom had heart conditions and some of whom were taking other drugs such as nitroglycerine, a combination that Pfizer has warned is potentially deadly.
"We would suggest there is a risk in not advertising a product," responds Mr. McCormick. "Pfizer has done its best to communicate plainly and repeatedly about the attributes and the known risks, including the contraindications with nitrates. That's very important and it's on those ads."
Viagra ads are already running in about 50 medical publications. They target an unusually broad audience of doctors, including urologists, primary-care physicians, psychiatrists, cardiologists and people who treat diabetes, suggesting the wide variety of physicians Pfizer expects to be writing prescriptions for the drug. Ad executives figure that the doctor-focused campaign could cost more than $5 million by the time it winds up later this summer -- a big sum by the standards of most medical-journal advertising. Pfizer won't talk about budgets but says it believes the doctor push alone is among the biggest ever for a prescription drug.
Come October, the dancing-couples campaign will begin in consumer magazines, people familiar with Pfizer's plans say. If previous consumer-ad campaigns for drugs such as Schering-Plough's Claritin are any guide, Pfizer could end up pouring more than $60 million more into advertising aimed at consumers. And that doesn't include the countless pamphlets, wall posters and other materials that the company plans to deliver to doctors' offices. Pfizer is also sponsoring seminars for professionals and this week began sending out pamphlets detailing the appropriate use of Viagra to more than 750,000 physicians.
The medical-journal ads were created by Cline Davis & Mann, an ad agency in Manhattan that has created consumer ad campaigns for Pfizer products such as Bain de Soleil tanning lotions and BenGay, a sore-muscle ointment.
Pfizer says it is simply trying to introduce its new drug to doctors. "We believe that the safety and efficacy demonstrated with Viagra in the clinical trials is impressive and reassuring to physicians, and we want to communicate that," says Pfizer's Mr. McCormick. "We're trying to be positive and upbeat."
Ad professionals who specialize in drug advertising say there are competitive reasons for Pfizer to advertise aggressively. Asking why Pfizer is advertising Viagra is like asking "Why would Nike bother to advertise?" says Penny Hawkey, executive creative director at Medicus Communications, a medical ad agency owned by the closely held MacManus Group in New York. "You can never do enough to gain 'top of mind,' " she says. "You need to get there and stay there. You have to claim the hill so whoever is coming in behind you doesn't have a shot. The faster the better."
"There are other drugs coming and Pfizer has a window of opportunity," adds Ed Rady, president of Medicus Medical Education, a sister company also owned by MacManus . "If I were them, I would try to capture as big a share of this market as possible before others come."
Mr. Rady suggests Pfizer borrow a page out of the beer marketer's play book. Pointing to "drive carefully" campaigns, Mr. Rady notes that beer companies "have a certain amount of advertising that sells their beer and a certain amount that sells responsibility. They should be doing the same thing," he says of Pfizer.
Besides, others say, Pfizer needs to shout to overcome all the voices out there in the marketplace. "You have to control your own image," says Jerry Lee, managing director of HMC Advertising & Marketing, an ad agency specializing in drug advertising that is part of Omnicom Group. "If you don't create your own brand image, other people will take it and control it for you, and you can't let that happen." |
