Ever wonder what happened to the Marlboro Man? He’s alive and well and doing Viagra commercials. A recent TV campaign features middle-aged men who find themselves in a pickle, make a quick repair or adjustment and keep right on going. The ads all start with the same line, “This is the age of knowing how to make things happen.”
What’s great about these spots is that individually and as a group they are textbook examples of branding, particularly for a product that deals with a personal and often embarrassing physical problem. And they do it beautifully with sly inference and analogies that tell the story and subtly build the promise of the brand.
The spots are available online, of course, but here’s a quick synopsis. Each one stars a different 45-50ish guy, casually dressed, hasn’t shaved for at least a day (cuz let’s face it, guys, we don’t like to shave), and each is in the great outdoors, on his own, pursuing a passion of some sort. One is cruising in his classic ‘68 Camaro SS in the desert Southwest. One is pulling a horse trailer on a dirt road somewhere on the prairie. The last one is sailing his boat on a lake in what also appears to be a western locale. So at this point the average guy is thinking, I don’t know these dudes, but I do like their toys and their backyard.
Then each one of these lone men encounters a problem. The Camaro overheats. The horse trailer gets stuck in a muddy spot in the road. The block controlling the mainsail boom snaps off. Our heroes are in trouble. But not to fear, as the voiceover has already told us, these guys know what to do. The Camaro driver pulls into a dusty old gas station (the type that only exist in fiction) complete with wise old geezer, buys a large bottled water, glances at the geezer knowingly and dumps it in the radiator.
The guy with the horses gets them out of the trailer, hooks them to his pick-up and single-handedly (this is very important) drives the truck and the horse team at the same time, successfully extricating his equipment from the mud. Our lone sailor calmly dons a life jacket, makes a quick fix with a strap, goes below, and returns with the proper hardware to make a permanent repair. The boat never stops sailing.
So what’s the message here? Stuff happens. And when it does, Viagra Men don’t miss a beat. When your radiator is a little low; when your truck gets stuck in the mud; when your boom is swinging uselessly in the breeze, you know what to do, right guys? These guys do. At the end of the spots, each one heads for home at sunset, with a self-satisfied look on his face. Each arrives at his homestead, just as a light on the second floor window comes on. Hello! Daddy’s home.
If you’re with me so far, I hope you are having as much fun reading this as I am writing it. But I digress. The point is this is perfectly executed branding. Brands at their center are about self-esteem–that connection between the product or service and how it makes the customer feel about herself or himself as a result of using the brand. We all want to feel smart, healthy, macho or feminine, altruistic, successful, etc. Brands can help us do that. Decades ago Marlboro cigarettes staked out the macho man territory for their market. Other tobacco brands tried but never came close.
Viagra has dipped into the same central male emotional need to feel masculine, which includes the desire to feel virile and vital. And, obviously, their basic message is that men who may need a little help to “make things happen” only need to ask their doctors about Viagra to solve the problem. Now, instead of feeling inadequate, they can feel like independent problem solvers who are as capable as they ever were. Just like the dudes in the commercials.
The marketing folks at Viagra took a page from the classic branding handbook and created a new version of the Marlboro Man. And now the new hero gets healthier when he uses the product. And what brand doesn’t want that kind of power? Viva Viagra!