BOTHELL — Romantic images of couples together contrasted with blunt talk about how Cialis works, as the first full-length commercial for the erectile dysfunction drug aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The 60-second ad debuted for an audience of about 88 million people during the third quarter of Sunday’s game. It will continue to run during regular programming, according to Bothell-based ICOS Corp.
Doug MacLachlan, a marketing professor at the University of Washington, said he found the Cialis ad less jarring than that from a competing drug, Levitra. Its softer-sell approach, however, may make it more difficult to stand out.
"It’s the kind of ad that may have to run over and over again before people really pick up on it," MacLachlan said.
Most advertising critics around the country, in comparing the Levitra and Cialis ads on Monday, gave both mixed reviews, and the Cialis ad ranked low on public polls of favorite commercials.
But Cialis’ approach and lack of celebrity spokesman seemed to leave a better, if not memorable, impression on reviewers such as MacLachlan.
Unlike previous TV ads for rivals Viagra and Levitra, the announcer gives specific details about Cialis’ effect, including the fact that its effectiveness against erectile dysfunction can last up to 36 hours.
MacLachlan said the blunt talk didn’t bother him.
"The markets to which it’s aimed, in my view, are adult enough to deal with the specifics," he said. "Certainly, in the case of Cialis, where they’re trying to be different, they have to talk about the specifics."
Because of its specific claims, ICOS and its partner for the drug, Eli Lilly &Co., reviewed the ad with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prior to its airing.
The downside to being able to tout the drug’s advantages is that ICOS and Lilly then have to include information about its possible side effects. That part of the voiceover seems to last nearly half of the commercial, MacLachlan said.
He and other ad reviewers particularly noticed the side-effect message, which warned that men who experienced erections lasting four hours or more need to seek medical attention.
That condition, medically known as priapism, didn’t appear in the clinical trials for the drug, according to ICOS. But it’s a known risk for all three of the major erectile dysfunction pills.
MacLachlan, said the Super Bowl commercials for Levitra, which is made by Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline, were more "in your face."
The Levitra ads feature ex-NFL coach Mike Ditka talking about why football is superior to baseball, taking a sly swipe at Viagra, which has an advertising tie-in with Major League Baseball. Ditka also urged men to "take the challenge" and was shown throwing a football through a tire swing.
"They’re not subtle at all, are they?" MacLachlan said.
Viagra, the reigning market leader made by Pfizer Inc., sat out the battle between Super Bowl advertisers. The cost for 30 seconds of airtime this year exceeded $2.2 million.
The Super Bowl commercial officially kicked off the Cialis marketing campaign, which has been gaining speed this month. After debuting full-page print ads in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today last week, those ads appeared Monday in many more newspapers around the country, said ICOS spokeswoman Lacy Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick said visits to the Cialis.com Web site increased after the TV commercial’s debut on Sunday.
How the advertising affects prescriptions and sales figures for Cialis will take a while to assess. After its approval by the FDA in late November, ICOS and Lilly reported Cialis sales in the U.S. reached $28 million in the last few weeks of 2003.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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