The Background

The erectile dysfunction category is one characterised by shame. Men don’t want to talk about it and the advertising has been similarly shy – it's sterile and boring. Most brands just plug away with euphemistic imagery in discrete media – think discrete tube car panels featuring men sitting on the end of a bed in a vest with their head in their heads being consoled by a concerned-looking partner.

Numan are different. They want men to fear nothing and take action - so when we started working with them in 2019, we had a clear challenge. When you have a small budget, how do you capture the attention of the 1.2m men with erectile dysfunction, especially when they don’t leave any obvious data signals for you to target them 1:1?

The Solution

Our solution was to target all men - But that doesn’t come cheap. Through an innovative trading approach, we were able to fund (and sponsor) the boxing on Channel 5 and then release media value to fund a broadcast TV and OOH approach that went way beyond tube car panels.

Flipping the category on its head, we helped our audience find Numan through big, bold, broadcast media with fully unapologetic messaging.

We put synonyms for penises on the biggest formats possible, designed to smash the awkwardness and taboo around male sexual health. This involved buying a TV campaign featuring 12 synonyms for penis, and an out-of-home campaign that put a huge wiener (and a cock) on the most prestigious and visible 96 sheets in the country. It was the definition of bold, disruptive media planning.