Viva Viagra?
Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:08 AM by Allison Linn
Filed Under:
Health care
The setting is a folksy bar off a dusty highway. The scene: a group of guys who have gotten together for a jam session, to sing about ... the wonders of erectile dysfunction medication.
The new commercial for Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra is striking for a few reasons.
For one thing, there are no women in it -- this is a commercial all about guys bonding with other guys over the good times this medication has brought them, not sharing an intimate moment with their female partner. And secondly, some of the guys here strike the viewer as pretty young for erectile dysfunction.
Is Viagra taking things too far? The AIDS Healthcare Foundation thinks so. It alleges that the ad’s take on the celebratory ditty “Viva Las Vegas” -- in their version, it’s “Viva Viagra” -- helps encourage the use of Viagra as a party drug rather than a more serious medication.
Pfizer disagrees. Spokesman Francisco Gebauer said the ad is intended to help men get over the embarrassment of talking about erectile dysfunction with their physicians, and that the company is committed to safe and appropriate use of the drug.
He said all the men in the commercial are over age 40, and that the company’s research shows that 50 percent of men over age 40 struggle with erectile dysfunction to some degree.
We’ve certainly come a long way from the days of then 70something Bob Dole earnestly hawking Viagra. But then again, over the past few years plenty of pharmaceutical companies have started taking more humorous and daring approaches to promote their medications. Also, Viagra now faces much fiercer competition in the market, so it needs to do more to stand out.
Still, is it appropriate for prime-time television? When Ads of the Weird wrote about a commercial for Trojan condoms earlier this summer, plenty of readers wondered why major networks refused to show that commercial during peak television viewing hours, while they seem to have no problem with commercials for “E.D.” drugs.
“Viva Viagra” debuted during the “NBC Nightly News.” It will air on network and cable programming with more than 90 percent adult viewers, Gebauer said.
(MSNBC.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Click here to watch the ad online.
Update! MSNBC.com's television editor, Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, also weighs in on "Viva Viagra" in her recent blog post on ads that get a bit too personal. Click here to read about it.
