The product: Viagra
The creatives: Michael Murray, Jason Hill, Ron Smrczek and Zak Mroueh
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The director: Eric Lynn, Radke Films/Partizan LA
The creatives: Michael Murray, Jason Hill, Ron Smrczek, Zak Mroueh
The director: Eric Lynn, Radke Films/Partizan LA
The brief: Create a campaign that gets people talking about the positive effect Viagra can have on relationships.
The rules: Canadian regulations allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise their brands on television, but they are forbidden to discuss what the medication does. This campaign gets around the rules by showing people using a made-up language to talk about what happens after people take the pill. The only discernible word in each conversation is “Viagra.”
The language: Taxi’s creative team made up the gibberish language spoken in the commercials. “It was really an exercise on which words sounded best together when spoken in a sentence,” said Mr. Smrczek, associate creative director at the agency.
The history: In an earlier Canadian ad campaign - also by Taxi - Pfizer Canada superimposed the distinctive blue Viagra pill over people’s mouths to censor them speaking about the effects of using the pill. That campaign won awards around the world.
