After years of being recruited, pro athlete Deion Sanders is doing some recruiting of his own. This time, the former professional football and baseball star wants to get men on board with using Botox.
Allergan hired Sanders as a spokesman to de-stigmatize men’s cosmetic use of Botox for facial frown lines and crow’s feet. Starring in two online videos, Sanders, whose nickname is “Primetime,” shows off his well-known boisterous side as he talks about hitting one milestone stat—the age of 50.
Sanders chats up two similarly aged men in a bar about using Botox. When Sanders tells the two that he finally decided to do something about his wrinkles and talked to his doctor who recommended the Allergan injection, one of the men asks, “Isn’t that for women?” Sanders says, “Nope, I did it.”
That’s just the message Allergan wants to get to other men who are potential customers. Referring to the “quiet growth” in the male aesthetic market in its press announcement, Allergan seems to be looking to make that more vocal with the outspoken athlete as brand ambassador.
“This campaign is specifically designed to create a window of opportunity for men who may be considering an aesthetic treatment but have not yet discussed it with a physician or among their friends and partners. Our goal is to get men talking about aesthetics and help them understand that aesthetic treatments are not just for women,” said David Moatazedi, Allergan senior VP, medical aesthetics, in an email interview.
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Along with the videos, Sanders is plugging on behalf of Botox, talking about his renewed post-50 look with media Entertainment Tonight and posting on his social media. In a Twitter post marked #ad and linked to a longer Facebook post with one of the videos, he wrote “Prime’s 50 and you know I’m present. I’m feelin’ good about me & want to tell you about something.”
Allergan has been working for some time to beef up men's use of its aethestics line of products. In a Q2 financials call, William Meury, Allergan’s chief commercial officer, noted that medical aesthetics is one of its fastest-growth areas, noting “Attitudes towards aesthetics are changing, and new demographics, including millennials and males, are expanding rapidly,” according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.
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CEO Brent Saunders previously talked about Allergan’s double chin treatment Kybella as a product that could help attract men to Allergan’s other aesthetic treatments. And he recently called aesthetics the world's best pharma market.
The medical aesthetics market is growing steadily with projected increases in the $53.3 billion market of 5% annually and predicted to reach $73.6 billion in global sales, according to recent research from Research and Markets, which included Allergan as a leading player. The U.S. accounts for about 45% of the global market.