Blue pill-pushers

In September last year, official figures showed a startling rise in the number of young British men turning up at A&E with painfully persistent erections. The number of admissions for priapism, to use the medical term, has increased by 51 per cent on the previous decade. Medical experts suggested that the cause was young men taking Viagra in combination with other illegal drugs.

This may come as a surprise to anyone who assumed that taking Viagra was the preserve of older men who want to keep their sex life going for as long as possible. But now, 20 years after the famous blue pills were first approved, they are a lifestyle drug for young people. A reasonable question to ask is why younger men, in the prime of life, should need Viagra — or want to take it. Aren’t they virile enough already?

Marketing plays a big part in the story. In 2014, the branding agency Pearlfisher was hired to rebrand Viagra for the Russian market. The brief was to adapt Pfizer’s drug for a ‘changing consumer profile’. The ‘A’ at the end of the word was enlarged, to make it look more tumescent. The box was redesigned so it resembled a packet of chewing gum — to have a ‘snap, crack, pop’ feel. Viagra was repositioned as an aspirational drug, with ‘premium credentials’, to be offered to ‘powerful and dynamic’ men. The advertising babble sounds ludicrous, but the plan seems to have worked. Young Russian men now feel comfortable taking Viagra at the end of an evening — and discarded packets have become a common sight among the usual detritus that litters the streets.

The drug has not yet had the same rebrand in the UK. Still, a proliferation of adverts on the London Underground suggests a similar drive is under way.