Cialis Soars, But Zestra Can't Get Arrested

You've probably seen those Cialis commercials featuring loving couples, romantic settings, 4-hour erection warnings and his-and-hers bathtubs.

Or maybe you've seen the amusing spot for Trojan's Fire and Ice condoms, featuring a couple's chat with a very informed cashier at an all-night pharmacy.

And then there’s the venerable Viagra, whose commercials may run the gamut but certainly defined the category and made life easier for brands aiding sexual dysfunction.

Make that brands aiding male sexual issues. Ads for Zestra, a product that enhances sexual arousal for women, have been hitting a glass ceiling in the US. According to today's New York Times, ads such as the one above for Zestra are "meeting resistance from TV networks, national cable stations, radio stations, and even Web sites like Facebook and WebMD."

Rachel Braun Scherl, president of Semprae Laboratories, manufacturer of Zestra, and Mary W. Jaensch, Semprae’s CEO, spent eight months in 2009 pitching the ad to 100 TV networks. Only Soapnet, a Disney-owned female-skewing channel, and Discovery Health, which is disappearing to make room for Oprah's 24/7 cable channel, made a buy. “There’s a double standard when it comes to society’s comfort level with female sexual health and enjoyment,” commented Braun Scherl.

“The Cialises of the world are a perfectly acceptable part of conversation in our culture today, but when it comes to talking about the realities of women’s lives, like menstruation, you always have some woman running in the field in a dress.”

Radio was no friendlier, even with custom-created ads. Stations told them the words "sex" and "arousal" were a problem. Facebook? Forget it. A invite for “Zestra Essential Arousal Oils — Try Zestra for Free” was pulled after a few weeks, following Facebook's notice that “advertisements that contain or promote adult content” including “sexual terms and/or images,” were not allowed.

Robert J. Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, comments: “Double standards abound when it comes to advertising anything having to do with our private parts. Commercials for erectile dysfunction products, which discuss not only sex but the hydraulic processes involved in having sex have played during major venues like the Super Bowl. They boldly tout male sexual pleasure as a commodity: an erection in a bottle.”

But Zestra “places female pleasure first, and even seems to suggest that this pleasure can be had with or without the presence of a man,” concludes Thompson, referring to the ad's male-free presence and user testimonials such as, “It works so well, when I think about it, it even makes me want to go home and use it now.”

Even so, Zestra sales are creeping up, and US talk shows hosted by Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray and Tyra Banks have all featured the product. It was also just featured on ABC's The View.

 “What I would say is, if there are standards for what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, they should be equally applied to products for male and female sexual enjoyment,” says Braun Scherl. Perhaps Zestra should set its sights on markets such as Europe, where, evidently, anything goes.

Interesting to see Cialis, meanwhile, run a recent US spot that puts the focus on women's pleasure and puts the man in the background: