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February 2006 - Strategy Magazine
Who to Watch: Sex

Sexual healing: Viagra's Veronica Piacek
How Veronica Piacek got consumers to ask for Viagra by name

by Annette Bourdeau
page 18

Let's talk about sex.

Not always an easy proposition, especially among Viagra's older-skewing male target. But, in her sixth year at the helm of the Kirkland, Que.-based Pfizer Canada brand, Veronica Piacek, team leader, urology, has demonstrated that constantly seeking feedback - from consumers and physicians alike - about everything from sexual performance to sexual nuances has paid off.

Even after facing two years of competition from rival erectile dysfunction (ED) treatments Cialis and Levitra, Viagra has held on to two-thirds of the Canadian market share (the second highest in the world for Viagra), cementing its number-one spot in the category.

And her campaigns have been picked up by her international counterparts around the world, including Europe, Latin America, and even the U.S., where a spot featuring ecstatic men singing Queen's "We are the Champions," was the first in Pfizer Canada's history to be adopted down south. Piacek also oversees DETROL, a bladder control treatment; her 2005 campaign for the brand has since been picked up in Ireland.

"It's no coincidence that Veronica has consistently been the client behind many successful campaigns," says Zak Mroueh, VP/ECD at Taxi in Toronto. "She expects and demands great work from an agency. When she believes in an idea, she supports and nurtures it emphatically."

Part of Piacek's support and nurturing process includes backing up concepts with data to get them to fly internally, and, of course, to ensure different nuances about the touchy subject won't offend the target. "People say to me 'Veronica, we've already researched Viagra tons,'" she says, referring to her internal reputation as a research hound. "To me, it's vital to test ad concepts before they go on.... I want the data to back up that consumers are fine with it, that physicians are fine with it."

Piacek moved to Viagra in 2000, just one year after its Canadian launch, after spending six years working on Pfizer consumer health care brands like Visine and Reactine. She immediately recognized that the brand would need unique treatment. "Viagra's different - a consumer-driven pharmaceutical product," she explains. She knew physicians wouldn't be proactive about prescribing her product, so she had to get consumers to ask for it. She started pushing for a consumer ad campaign, which wasn't an easy task.

"That was a big thing for Pfizer," she recalls. "It took a lot of persuasion. We did a lot of research." She built up credibility internally by doing lots of presentations, and backing up her stance with facts and figures like the stat indicating it took ED sufferers an average of five years to acknowledge their problem. "There was some push-back internally, that's for sure. I was lucky my boss was supportive." Once she secured approval, she had agencies pitch for the business. Taxi won.

While getting the internal okay to launch a consumer ad campaign was tough, it wasn't the end of the battle: She was encouraged to keep costs down by picking up American ads. But she felt strongly that the Canadian market would respond better to original work, in part because pharmaceutical ad regulations are very different here. For example, in Canada, pharmaceutical ads aren't allowed to link their product to any medical conditions. Luckily, research findings backed her up once again. "The U.S. creative didn't test as well as the Canadian work," she says.

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