Oooops ! ED ads in trouble again

Feb/20/2007 07:36 Filed in: Current DTC
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The last thing you expect to see when watching a family movie, like Miracle on 34th Street, is an ad for an ED product yet that is exactly what happened over the holidays. In December alone, an ad for impotence drug Viagra aired at around 9 p.m. during "Prancer," a G-rated movie about a young girl who nurses one of Santa's reindeers back to health; another spot for rival medicine Levitra appeared during an afternoon showing of the comedy "Pee-wee's Big Adventure;" and another for Cialis graced an early-evening presentation of the holiday classic "Miracle on 34th Street." In addition to the questions of "why this would happen" one has to ask "why the hell are ED marketers still using TV and ignoring the Web? Because they are ignorant and still don't understand today's media.


Some impotence-drug makers have recently ramped up spending on advertising in an attempt to jump-start the category's faltering sales -- which have topped out around $3.2 billion a year world-wide, short of the $4 billion some analysts had predicted by now. Despite its aggressive cost-cutting in other marketing areas, Pfizer spent almost $35 million on Viagra ads in the third quarter of last year, almost 50% more than the year-earlier period, according to the most recent data available from TNS. Spending on Levitra quintupled in the third quarter of 2006 over the 2005 period. Both companies had pulled broadcast ads during parts of 2005 over regulatory concerns, though spending on other forms of advertising continued. Drug companies still are spending less on the ads for impotence medicines than in 2004, when Cialis and Levitra had just launched. Ad's on the Internet are all but completely gone even though when this author worked on Cialis 85% of the traffic to the website was the direct result of online ads and paid search.

The viral component of the Web, especially consumer generated media, could be leverage to deliver a great message to a relevant audience. Somehow there are still marketers that believe someone is going to see a spot on TV and it is going to convince them to ask their physician about Cialis, Levitra or Viagra. Why did they come to that conclusion? They probably have lots of qualitative research that shows the message is memorable or motivating. But here's a news flash geniuses : people say and do two different things in focus groups ! That's what happens when marketers rely too much on market research and manipulate data to show that TV is the right way to go. As this author reported before the websites for Levitra, Viagra and Cialis have only had modest updates and none of them take advantage of new media to break through the barriers that men have to asking for treatment. Maybe that's why their budgets are cut so much because someone realized that the DTC they were using was not producing the ROI that they had expected.

The ED category is probably one that could benefit the most from consumer generated media. Can you imagine a real guy talking about the personal decision he went through to ask his doctor for treatment and then realizing how dumb he was for waiting too long? Not to mention the fact that he could mention that his doctor didn't ask him any embarrassing questions. Marketers have a lot to learn about the new consumer and new media but the mistakes that are being made are unforgivable and it's time to change the people who control the dollars with new talent that can meet the needs of consumers who are skeptical but still hungry for information.
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