What better combo than the little blue pill and Sin City? So Pfizer today is going to air new TV ads that feature a group of men in their 40’s and 50’s singing “Viva Viagra” to the tune of the old Elvis Presley hit, “Viva Las Vegas.” The first ad, which is an attempt to make men less embarrassed about the disorder, will run during the NBC Nightly News.

“This disease is very stigmatized and there are a lot of misperceptions,” Ponni Subbiah, Pfizer’s medical director for Viagra, tells Bloomberg News. “Men are very willing to talk to their doctors about back pain or injuries, but not” erectile dysfunction.

Viagra sales have dipped 11 percent to $1.7 billion since 2003, when Lilly’s Cialis and Bayer’s Levitra became available, Bloomberg notes. Pfizer, however, remains optimistic, because as few as 10 percent of the 33 million US men with erectile dysfunction treat the condition. To expand its share, Pfizer is studying new formulations and an OTC version.

Viagra ads have often sparked caused controversy. Pfizer pulled an ad in 2004 that featured a man who grew devil horns when he walked past a lingerie store, after the FDA called the ad misleading and said it didn’t properly warn of the risks.

“Pfizer has been an outlier in shamelessly promoting Viagra as a party drug,” says Mike Weinstein, who heads the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which runs clinics and sued Pfizer over charges Viagra marketing promoted risky recretional sex. “All those Sin City references, everything associated with Vegas, that is what they want the association to be. It’s not about a medical condition, it’s about performance anxiety.”

Meanwhile, to catch the unofficial Viagra theme song, watch this…