Caverject

Consumers are more open to frank talk about sensitive health problems.

As the trend toward frank, public discussion of sensitive subjects collides with easy access to information at home, it had to happen: www.impotent.com. The Internet page for the impotence drug Caverject sterile powder shows how marketers can deliver potentially embarrassing information to consumers without causing any shame. Right up front, the page tells you, "Welcome. You are person 33,663 visiting this site." And the number grows daily.

"People are seeking it out," says Daniel Watts, spokesman for Caverject's maker, Pharmacia and Upjohn Inc. of Kalamazoo, Michigan. "They don't have to feel they have anyone else looking over their shoulder."

The impotence web site offers a quiz, frequently asked questions about impotence, myths and facts, ways to obtain a free information kit, and names of doctors specializing in impotence treatment. "Of the 10 million men in the U.S. who suffer from impotence, most are embarrassed or reluctant to talk with a doctors," the site proclaims. "Only 10 percent seek treatment for this condition. That's a shame, because most men who do see a doctor can successfully overcome this condition and enjoy sex again."

That language is both straightforward and reassuring. Yet it is still about a problem and a product that makes most people squirm, titter, or redden with self-consciousness. Professionals who promote potentially embarrassing products have developed several strategies to inform customers and increase sales.

* Be discreet. The privacy-oriented Internet promotion is a good example.

* Be direct, with forthright acknowledgements of hemorrhoid problems or cures for male baldness.

* Be funny, like Joe Boxer's cheerful underwear ads, or teasing, like spots for prune juice or dentures.

* Be upbeat. Ads for tampons show women in white tennis outfits, leading active lifestyles.

Suzanne Gabriel, who handles public-relations campaigns for Monistat, a yeast-infection medication, and Replens, a vaginal lubricant, says candid talk from patients and doctors is effective when dealing with unpleasant medical conditions. Her campaigns frequently employ physicians to answer media questions about problems and the products that treat them. "We use their knowledge, let them explain what this yeast infection medication does," says Gabriel, a senior vice president in the health-care division of Porter/Novelli, a New York City public-relations firm. "When consumers see information like that in Jane Brody's column (in the New York Times), they're a lot less embarrassed to go into the pharmacy and ask about it. All of a sudden, it's legitimized."

As recently as ten years ago, publicists found it difficult to call a reporter and pitch a story about yeast infections. But now, nearly every newspaper has a reporter assigned to health issues. Daytime television shows like Oprah Winfrey's have made explicit conversation almost commonplace, and AIDS has brought condom advertising to places it's never been before.

"By the time we get to the point where we're picking up the phone and pitching the story, we understand the product. We see ourselves as educators," Gabriel says. "You do continue to get some ignorant reporter every now and then who snickers, but it's becoming a very sophisticated group."

Honest information helps educate people, but promoters of sensitive products still have to use caution. Ads that are too blunt pose risks of offending and alienating the customers they intend to reach. Research shows that people are offended by two things, says Paul Dishman, a professor of marketing at Idaho State University. "The product itself, or oftentimes, the scenario of the ad," he says. "Some women find feminine-hygiene products advertised on television offensive because they're watching with their family. If it's in magazines, it's not offensive."

Dishman also warns against inappropriate use of nudity in ads. He finds that women are more likely to be offended by nudity in perfume ads than in ""motherhood" ads, such as one for Gerber baby formula in which a bare-breasted mother nurses her child. "They're not necessarily offended if the nudity is in a context they can comprehend," Dishman says.

However, not everyone embraces this new openness in advertising. A more open and less euphemistic mass media reflects general changes in cultural norms, says Donna Halper, instructor of mass communication at Emerson College in Boston and president of a radio consulting firm. "When I was a kid, I recall the full-page ads for sanitary napkins, except you couldn't even use the words," she says. The ad depicted a beautifully dressed woman, but the only copy on the page was "Modess...because." "I guess the message was that if you didn't want to get your lovely gown ruined, you better use Modess," Halper says. "Today, I imagine the approach would be a lot more in-your-face. I miss euphemism."

COPYRIGHT 1996 Copyright by Media Central Inc., A PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group