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Thursday, September 18, 2003After one of the most expensive and ribald advertising blitzes in drug industry history, Levitra, the new impotence treatment, has in less than a month captured half of Viagra's market share among new prescriptions. The secret of Levitra's extraordinary success is an unapologetic push for recreational use. ....GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer, the co-marketers of Levitra, boldly admit that they are focusing on men who may have successful sexual relationships but who simply want to improve the quality or duration of their erections. ...The company's ads feature a young man whose attempt to throw a football through a tire bounces off the side. After Levitra is mentioned, he shoots the ball through the tire again and again and is joined by his attractive wife. Executives at GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer are unapologetic about their attempt to corral healthy men into trying the drug. Simply achieving penetration and ejaculation — the main goals Pfizer initially set for Viagra — are not the goals set by Levitra's sellers. Sexual satisfaction is. "We've done a lot of research on trying to understand what men want," said Nancy Bryan, vice president for marketing at Bayer. "And what they want is to improve the quality of their erections, to get one that's hard enough and lasts long enough for a satisfying sexual experience." The age of cosmetic pharmacology is upon us. (By the way, Levitra appears to have fewer side effects than Viagra, which can cause transient blue vision and precipitous drops in blood pressure if combined with certain medication, but there's no evidence that it's more effective than Viagra.) UPDATE: Dr. Bradley has more thoughts on Levitra and its ad campaign. posted by Sydney on 9/18/2003 09:48:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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