Ogilvy Shanghai’s subtle Viagra ad wins in Pharma

THE WINNER of the Pharma Grand Prix for 2025 is ‘Make Love Last – Bedroom’, a campaign execution created by Ogilvy Shanghai for Viagra. Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is prohibited in China, and sex remains a sensitive topic. To promote Viagra, Ogilvy Shanghai took a delicate approach, creating an unbranded art and photogra- phy project that highlighted three couples’ challenges with intimacy. Using time-lapse photography that kept the project safe from censors, the stories encouraged an open conversation while adhering to regulations.

Jury President Franklin Williams, executive director, experience design, Area 23, said the campaign cleverly circumvented Chinese rules — relying solely on the iconic image of a blue pill to relay a marketing message: “‘Make Love Last’ delivered all of the promises of the brand without saying a word,” he said.

Jury President Franklin Williams

The Jury awarded one Grand Prix and one Gold Lion in Pharma, from 305 entries. Williams said the process involved a mix of “instinct and experience. At one level you just know when you see good work. But then the experience part is what makes you interrogate it. It’s im- portant to love the work but you also need to verify it, to understand the unseen challenges of how the work got to where it got.”

In terms of trends, Williams said: “Entertainment that earns attention rose to the top. The best work grabbed our attention and made us want to watch and rewatch.”

He added that the best entries demonstrated “craft with purpose. The medium could also be the mes- sage. The techniques being used helped break down barriers.”