Pardon the Innuendo: NFL Ad Revenue Going Softer Without Viagra

Posted

In Blog Post, Hank Yuloff, Marketing Ideas

It is time. The moment is right to share this Viagra story with you.
You see, it is a sad thing when a patent goes away.
It means a company will no longer be able to be the sole profiteer from their idea. With a patent, the company has the sole right to have business intercourse with the world.

There is no underestimating the power of Viagra’s pull on the advertising world. It was one of the very first drugs we saw advertised on television. Remember Ex-US Senator Bob Dole hawking it in his 70s? $8 pills added up to a BILLION dollars in sales in the first year alone. To date, 20 million Americans have tried it (though, to be honest, I am not sure that they are including the partner of the actual pill popper. That number could be up to 40 million. Unless, of course, some of those partners found more than one partner who wanted pre-fabricated wood).

In this case we are going to talk about the 1996 patent of Viagra, which has erected a huge market with very little competition, all in the name of Morning Wood. Yes, their patent is about to expire.

What that means is that sales for the name brand “hypertention and angina pectoris products” are about to go soft as several generic versions of the drugs that keep you ready to rock after you get horny hit the market are set to expire. This means that in order to continue to make rock hard profits, the company will have to lower the expense side of the ledger.

Here are the numbers: Pfizer, purveyors of penile pillars of perfection, spent $100 million on television ads over the past year including $31 million during NFL games (per ispot.tv). In case you have not noticed, those ads stopped on May 15 (per Advertising Age, which first reported on the deflation of Viagra ad buys).

Yes, we will no longer see that 20-something-year-old blonde checking in to that inn in Vermont with the man and 12 pieces of luggage, but she only cares about the Viagra mini-pack in his wallet.

OH… don’t think you will still see the Cialis Tub Next to a Tub ads, either. THAT patent is running out soon, too, which will deflate their advertising buys from a high of $105 million a year. Some Cialis spots are stull airing, but the number per day has shrunk from 91 to 10.

If you think your sales may some day go down and prophylactically want to work on your own sales, pumping them up and generating a growth spurt, give us a call at 800-705-4265 and we will talk about it. You can also go to www.BoxFullOfMarketing.com and we will slide you right in to our calendar where we can go deep in to your issues.