Sex and the single pill
This week (March 27) in 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company’s application for the sale of Sildenafil, known today as Viagra, the first oral treatment for male impotence.
Sildenafil was originally created as a possible cure for heart diseases, but Pfizer researchers studying the drug’s effects discovered that while it had no positive effect on the heart, it did cause male erections.
Unsurprisingly, the sales and marketing folks at Pfizer were delighted, seeing a huge sales opportunity. After Pfizer quickly patented the drug, and its chemists turned Sildenafil into pill form, Viagra was advertised as a cure for impotence, or in typical marketspeak, “erectile dysfunction.”
Viagra was an instant success. Even though it was available by prescription only, and cost around $10 a pill, in the first year alone sales of Viagra reached the $1 billion mark, helped by a massive television and print ad campaign in which men of advanced age – including, famously, former senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole (then in his 70s) – touted it for bringing romance back into their lives. And Pfizer quickly got around the prescription-only requirement by marketing it online, asking customers to fill out an “online consultation” form, for which they then received Viagra by mail.
Soon competitors were flooding the mar- ket with products such as Cialis and Levitra, and ad campaigns in which men ranging in age from their 50s to their late 40s are seen flirting with women as a voice-over announcer coyly suggests that “when the time is right,” these pills will make sure “you’re ready.”
Today, the market for these impotence drugs is approximately 35 million men, including millions of baby boomers now in their early 60s, and nearly 20 million men have already tried these drugs. And sales remain strong despite the fact that their longterm effects are not fully understood, and the commercials warn men with heart trouble not to take them.
As an aside, having once worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency, I know that a great many claims made in advertisements must be vetted by lawyers to forestall the chance of the company being sued for false advertising or, in the case of certain drugs, for not disclosing possible side effects. As a result, oftentimes an ad agency’s marketing folks, whose job it is to sell the product, get into heated debates with the lawyers over what an advertising campaign can and can’t say.
Still, I’m guessing that when the lawyers insisted that any advertising for these pills must include the disclaimer that, “For an erection lasting more than four hours, contact your doctor immediately,” the marketing folks didn’t complain one bit. BRUCE G. KAUFFMANN
Emailauthor BruceG. Kauffmann atbruce@ history lessons.net