Viagra Ad for Women?

The marketing world is filled with ads for all sorts of products and services for all kinds of demographics of people. So, how do marketers decide who they want their audience to be when creating their advertisements?

There are a lot of factors that go into this fancy little world of market segmentation, which in simplest form means people who want to buy the same thing as the person that is just like them. And there are four ways to go about categorizing this; demographic (physical/ measurable attributes), geographic (where you live or work), psychographics (mental/ emotional attributes) and behavioral (actions/ attitudes). All of these factors have to go into just the process of deciding what to put into a commercial just to have the potential to reach the audience most willing to buy said product.

But, what would happen if marketers did the opposite of this? It has happened before. Think of Viagra. Yes I said Viagra; that little blue pill that men in their 50’s and beyond sometimes need to “get it up.” You would think that because this is a pill designed specifically for male use, commercials would segment their market and advertise specifically for men right? Well, apparently the marketers of Viagra didn’t think that was necessary.

Think about it, who do you think actually goes out and buys that little blue pill? Of course men are often times the consumers, but I am sure that there are some who would rather not be rung up at the counter with a box of Viagra in their hand.

Women! The wife who wants the sex life of her 20’s with the man of her dreams is also a consumer of the little blue pill. And Viagra capitalized on this. Viagra has in the past few weeks come out with the very first erectile dysfunction ad featuring a woman as the speaker. Recently, they have been pressured with outside competition such as Cialis and other products in Europe due to its patent expiration last year. Sales fell 8% and Viagra decided to take a new approach to boost their sales and this is what they have chosen.

 

So why is this effective? Women see someone like them discussing the issues that their “honey” is having in bed, losing the intimate moment that was about to take place. Then, not only does she speak directly to women, but for the first time ever, she uses the word erection in the commercial rather than saying just “ED” as men do in all previous ads. This commercial is still so new that there is no information on its effectiveness on sales, but I guess we will just have to see!

Market segmentation is huge in deciding how to represent a product in advertising. But, as our world changes and especially stereotypical gender rolls begin to reverse or equal out, we see that advertisements and product positioning are changing with the times.