When you win the advertising contract to sell goods or services, it's usually easy to devise a marketing campaign. With cosmetics or an over-the-counter product to improve appearance or hide blemishes, you go for a "before" and "after" approach showing the beauty of the result. It even works with investment advisors and financial firms with happy people coming out of an office block and punching the air as if celebrating a touchdown. But when it comes to the little blue pills, you suddenly realize there are a number of problems. Even the name of the "complaint" is difficult. In the good old days, the medical profession talked about impotence as the catch-all term for everything that failed "down there". But that word has so many unfortunate meanings, it was necessary to persuade people to prefer "erectile dysfunction". This has a more clinical feel and is less of a judgement on the man. To say one part is not working is not suggesting that the man is a complete failure with no power to do anything.

Imagine a "before" image of a penis and then something enormous lined up against a tape measure. . . Well, this is possible in hardcore porn and in instructional content on "better sex". Somehow even the most explicit content becomes acceptable if you label it educational. But it's not going to be acceptable to the TV and cable companies for primetime viewing. No matter what the First Amendment might have to say about the right to publish, there would be a firestorm of protest from outraged parents and other adults who find it difficult to talk openly about sex. Whether it's actually legal to broadcast is irrelevant in such situations. The damage would be done 10 seconds after the first ad began to air.

The other factor is the FDA which has some interesting rules requiring anyone advertising drugs to list all the adverse side effects. That's why the last 20 seconds of every ad has a list of side effects scrolling too fast for you to read. This limits what you can show and say. So you sit down with your creative team and come up with little scenes based around the matrimonial home - can't be seen to be promoting sex out of wedlock and as for gay sex. . .

The couple are busy with housework and then their eyes meet. Cue romantic music swelling to a climax as we see images of them first holding hands and then relaxing in a hot tub looking happy. Shame about all that unfinished housework. Even with such general content, there are family and religious pressure groups whose main function is to complain about any sexual material shown before 10 pm. Why do they complain? Because at some point the advertisers stop being coy and announce the name of their produce as Viagra and every innocent child in the world turns to their parents and asks what "that" does. Parents hate it when they are asked questions about sex in general. But sex gone wrong is even more difficult. You can just hear the opening, "Well, son, usually the man penetrates the woman but. . ." So you just can't win although, truth be told, just showing the name Viagra for 30 seconds would work.