Cause Marketing

Brooke Shields’ face graced this ad for Allergan’s prescription eyelash-grower called Latisse in dozens of magazines for the better part of 18 months. Allergan still lists her as a celebrity supporter on the Latisse website , even though actress Claire Danes has superseded Brooke in the recent print ads I’ve seen. Latisse sponsors the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I first profiled this campaign back in July 2009 , when I saw it in Real Simple magazine, meaning the creative was available at least in time for that ad. Since everything else is in the creative is basically the same except for some typography, why on earth would Allergan not use Brooke in this ad that ran in the September-October 2009 issue of Bride’s Magazine , but would use her ad in the November-December 2009 issue of Bride’s ? One obvious possibility is that Bride’s Magazine , which publishes 6-times a year, has a longer lead time than Real Simple , which publishes monthly. But I doubt it. It could be that Allergan is testin...

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...