SPORT Sales Pitch on Men's Health
August 20, 2003
When Mike Ditka was
coaching the Chicago Bears in the 1980s, he
was a legend as much for his temper as his success.
The 1986 Super Bowl winner once broke his hand
punching a steel cabinet in a post-match outburst.
Fans of American football are therefore in
for something of a surprise this autumn when
they will find Coach Ditka as the front man
for an educational campaign about male sexual
impotence.
Mr Ditka will be the spokesman for a "men's
health" programme sponsored by Bayer and
GlaxoSmithKline, whose erectile
dysfunction drug Levitra was approved by
US regulators yesterday.
The two drugs companies have also signed a
sponsorship deal with the National Football
League which will see Levitra being advertised
during games.
With Eli Lilly and ICOS expecting to receive
US approval for their treatment Cialis this
year, the link-up with the NFL will be one part
of a three-way marketing blitz for
impotence treatments, as the companies try
to compete with the best-known drugs brand of
the past decade, Pfizer's Viagra.
With all three brands expected to spend tens
of millions of dollars on marketing, the impotence
campaigns will underline just how powerful a
force drugs companies have become in US television
advertising.
According to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR, the
pharmaceuticals industry spent $2.6bn on consumer
advertising last year in the US, more than double
the amount spent in 1998. Industry analysts
estimate Pfizer spent between $80m and $180m
marketing Viagra
last year.
The Levitra football deal was signed only after
the NFL ended a ban on drug company advertising.
Brian McCarthy of the NFL said that the league
initially resisted the adverts because of fears
that the information might not be "100
per cent truthful".
"But we took a long look at the category
and became comfortable that the ads were being
properly regulated," he said.
The NFL has also watched other sports sign
lucrative deals with drugs companies, especially
in the market for impotence treatments.
Viagra is a sponsor of Major League Baseball
and earlier this year Pfizer hired Rafael Palmeiro
of the Texas Rangers to be one of its spokesmen
for the drug, alongside Brazilian footballer
Pele. Cialis, which has already been approved
by a number of countries, was a sponsor of the
America's Cup sailing race.
The blunt TV adverts in the US contrast with
the approach Bayer, GSK and Lilly have had to
take in Europe, where the drugs are already
available but where companies are not allowed
to communicate directly with patients.
They have had to adopt a more subtle approach.
The UK website for Levitra, for instance, encourages
women to discuss erectile
dysfunction with their partners and to advise
them to consult a doctor if they have a problem.
The heavy advertising has led to persistent
claims that the industry was creating demand
for drugs that was not backed by genuine medical
need. Last month Brazil forced the companies
to withdraw adverts about impotence, partly
because of fears that men were using the drugs
for recreational purposes without any medical
advice.
Meanwhile, medical charities such as Médecins
sans Frontières have criticised the industry
for putting more resources into developing treatments
for impotence than for epidemics such as malaria.
Industry executives respond with a library
of research showing that impotence is a widespread
and poorly diagnosed problem. A 1999 study suggested
more than half of the men over 45 suffered from
some degree of impotence. The adverts are an
effective means of increasing awareness, they
argue.
As well as the unhappiness and depression that
impotence causes, the Impotence Association,
a UK patient group, says it can also be an early
signal of future prostate cancer, heart problems
or diabetes.
"Our big task is to persuade patients
to talk to their physicians about erectile dysfunction,"
says Lawson Macartney, a vice-president at GSK.
source:-http://news.ft.com
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