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Drug ads don't stand up to scrutiny
January 27, 2004
My brother-in-law and I were watching the Patriots-Colts
playoff game when an odd advertisement came
on the screen. A man and a woman were soaking
in separate porcelain bathtubs, improbably situated
on a promontory overlooking a sun-drenched valley.
Nothing much was happening. As the woman delicately
lifted her arm to touch the forearm of the man
we presumed to be her partner, a voice intoned:
"Are you ready for Cialis?"
The effect was hopelessly confusing, because
no, we were not ready for "See-Alice."
We were ready for the barrage of commercials
to end so we could witness Peyton Manning's
further humiliation. At first, I assumed the
ad was pitching hand cream, of which I approve,
in keeping with my dictum that men should moisturize
more often than they do. But once the drug name
"tadalafil" flashed on the screen,
with the admonition about calling your doctor,
the penny dropped. Ah, so: Return to Erectile
Dysfunction Junction.
The twin bathers were starring in a so-called
"reminder" ad. Cialis is relatively
new to the market, and if manufacturer Lilly
ICOS LLC were to promote it as a treatment
for ED, as we fellows delicately call it, they
would have to discuss its side effects as well.
These include but are not limited to: headache
and upset stomach; "backache and muscle
ache were also reported, sometimes with delayed
onset," Lilly says on its website. Without
apparent irony, the company adds: "Most
men weren't bothered by the side effects enough
to stop taking Cialis."
I should think not! Because even though it
is the third product in the ED "space,"
as we Madison Avenue hipsters say, Cialis has
a competitive advantage over Viagra and the
more recent Levitra, the official ED treatment
of the National Football League. To understand
Cialis's market position, think of the three
major news magazines -- Time, Newsweek, and
US News & World Report. As the third rag
in a three-rag market, US News & World Report
has a competitive advantage over Time and Newsweek
in that it is really boring, as opposed to merely
trite. That makes it different. Cialis's competitive
advantage over Viagra
and Levitra is that it lasts forever.
OK, not forever. But for 36 hours, which is
a very long time when you are "in the game,"
which is Levitra's curious circumlocution for
procreating the species. A friend of mine who
perhaps has too rich a sense of humor to be
promoting Cialis suggests that the codpiece
may return to fashion, after a 500-year hiatus.Back
to Marketing 101. With its boff-around-the-clock
capability, Cialis was marketed in Europe as
"Le Weekender." In the United States,
Lilly's ad agency came up with the slogan "Now
you can choose the moment that's right for you."
Here's a clip from a forthcoming ad: Mom is
doing the dishes, and Dad starts getting frisky.
The moment is clearly right for doped-up Dad,
yet why am I thinking that Mom might have preferred
help with the drying to the Tommy Tumescent
routine?
There is of course one more marketing problem
facing the Big Three in ED: convincing men that
they need the product. Statistics are hard to
come by, as Wall Street Journal reporters used
to say when they had no idea what they were
talking about, but between 15 million and 30
million men may have a clinical need for Lilly's
$10 pill. Naturally the ED pill pushers prefer
to talk about 30 million potential customers,
and they have every intention of driving that
number higher. So the ED ads successfully introduce
a new insecurity for the ever-swelling ranks
of over-the-hill male baby boomers to dwell
on: Maybe you don't need our product, but suppose
your rival for Ms. Right's affections boasts
36-hour capability? Or suppose the Joneses next
door are dosing up each weekend? How soon before
Mrs. Jones starts spreading the word?
Remember the Cold War? If you had nuclear weapons,
it was still OK if your enemy had them. What
was called Mutually Assured Destruction was
deemed to be a safe state of affairs. Now the
drug companies have transformed a bothersome
problem into a vast new commercial arena for
male vanity and paranoia. Call it Mutually Assured
Dysfunction.It's not as lucrative as the arms
trade, but just as corrupt. "Ethical"
drug companies my eye.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
source:-http://www.boston.com/news
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