Endo’s latest disease awareness campaign starts with a situation that is all too familiar for many patients.
The protagonist in the 30-second I Got Somebody spot is outdoors surfing the web on his mobile phone, searching for explanations regarding the curvature of his penis.
He suspects it might be Peyronie’s disease, a condition that affects approximately one in 10 men in the U.S. and is caused by a buildup of scar tissue.
Then, in the middle of his quest for medical insights, calamity strikes.
A tree branch crashes through the windshield of his car, a raccoon emerges from his garbage bin and a washing machine overflows. To all these daily trials, a chorus of men respond, “I got somebody for that.”
When the protagonist asks if they’ve got somebody for Peyronie’s disease, however, he’s met with blank stares.
The campaign’s 30- and 15-second spots are running nationally on broadcast TV including networks such as ABC, NBC, USA and Fox Sports.
The brand is also airing the commercials during programs such as CBS Evening News and NASCAR on The CW, as well as on streaming services (including Hulu, Amazon and Peacock) and a variety of websites.
While PD may be a stigmatized condition that’s difficult to discuss, Endo has found the best way to address the topic is through humor.
In the company’s first campaign for Xiaflex, which launched in 2021, a bent carrot served as a friendly metaphor for a sometimes embarrassing topic.
The turn to humor in these campaigns has a higher goal than simply eliciting chuckles, as Dayna Sracic, Endo’s executive director of consumer marketing, explains.
She notes that the challenge for male patients is how PD overwhelms them, underscoring that capable men all of a sudden become unwilling to talk about the condition due to fear, embarrassment and shame.
“One of the things that we have historically done and continue in this current campaign is that we work hard to normalize this conversation to let men know that they are not alone,” she says. “We let people know that one in 10 men do in fact have PD.”
While the embarrassment around the condition can have serious consequences from a social perspective, it can also have a profound impact from a clinical standpoint, too.
“We know from our data that roughly 3% of men get diagnosed on an annual basis,” Sracic says. “That’s low, given the 10% prevalence [of PD].”
She says the disparity underscores Endo’s commitment to normalizing the condition, letting men know that they aren’t alone and highlighting nonsurgical options for them to seek.
Sracic adds that the campaign’s turn to humor was built on market research that assured the approach was “resonant and authentic” to men living with PD. The humor, she says, was intended to play a “disarming role.”
Such an approach can benefit health clients on the marketing front.
“From a marketer’s perspective, you can use humor, but you have to be very careful because it can cut both ways,” she says. “Research is your friend.”
Notably, this is the first Endo PD-related campaign to appear on ESPN. Sracic says live sport content is premium inventory for Endo as it tries to reach men over 40 with targeted messaging.
“ESPN is a great part of our plan — it’s a new audience to reach and obviously of high value given our targeting,” she says.
The campaign also includes social media, digital, and search advertising.
Going forward, the non-branded I Got Somebody campaign will exist alongside the ongoing Bent Carrot campaign, primarily in digital channels, in what Sracic describes as a hybrid-activation approach.
