First we had the Hyundai ads.
Buy the car and if you lose your job they’ll take the car back.
They used to call that “reposession”. I guess they now call that marketing.
Then Ford followed suit. They did one better. Buy the truck and they’ll let you hold off on payments for awhile (then they’ll take the truck back!).
Mortgage companies, banks, and insurance companies have also gotten into the act. “If you’re in trouble, call us,” they say and we’ll work out a deal. The not-so-subtle marketing message is one of empathy. We feel your pain.
Now comes Pfizer.
According to reports, if you’re a guy and you lose your job they’ll float you a year’s worth of Viagra. Yup. Sound both salacious and stupid? I thought so.
Wait! It gets worse. For the cars, trucks, banks, etc., this recession marketing effort was all about getting people to do something they otherwise wouldn’t do.
Warren Holstein notes that part of the strategy appears to be an effort to keep folks from switching brands or going to god-forsaken generics. Better to give something away for a little while to maintain brand loyalty in tough times than risk people wandering off and looking for some alternative.
Because hard times shouldn’t mean the end to hard times.
At least there’s no chance of repossession.
Gee, I don’t know, Jerry. Few things will de-bone a boy’s drumstick like picking up a pink slip. I think it’s darned charitable of our friends at Pfizer to take that into account. Of course, it seems that, in this case, a loss of libido is more likely to be psychologically induced; if I’ve just gotten the sack, I’m not going to feel too frisky in the sack. I think the marketing problem they need to solve is to find a way to make the fired guy want to have sex and, in turn, to make his significant other want to have sex with a fired guy.
Maybe in addition to the free pills, they should offer free subscriptions to The Spice Channel.
Hey, Pfizer. Y’all can have that idea for free. Just remember where it came from.
Hmmm. A sort of pay it forward thing?