Products are marketed all around us through billboard ads. In Times Square, these ads are nearly ubiquitous, from window panes to benches to the sides of buses. However, Times Square is also home to much more garish forms of billboard ads such as the flashy, neon-lighted video screens that hover over a variety of department stores.

"Dazed tourists have no idea where they're going as they bobble-head across the street, shooting glances to the sky -- ''Wow, neon!'' -- to the sidewalk -- ''Wow, people!'' -- and back again. Ads and temptation everywhere: for sports cars, for boxers, for trips abroad" (Elliot).

Recorded with a video-camera, this thirty-second video reveals much more than it may seem. It demonstrates what Leah Hitchings discusses in her article, "Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras," that common people are no longer recording videos to show their friends via television. Instead, they are uploading them onto the Internet on sites such as YouTube where anyone in the world can view it. This, in turn, becomes especially useful for marketers because their company gets represented through these videos. Hitchings writes, "Hosting events in Times Square...is like buying product placement in a TV show or a movie — except the cameras are held by consumers and the placement is on the Internet." The remarkable thing about Times Square is that although confined by space, companies have continuously been able to market their products in new and exciting ways.
Designed to be more than a billboard, experiential marketing is the latest in marketing trends, actually advertising while allowing the customers to try a product. You could say it's like those people at the mall that try to recruit you over to their station to try some perfume product, but in the world of commercial advertising it is an original and unique experience. Charmin was one of the first executions of such a feat.

Wow, right? I'm astonished that the toilet paper didn't have a dyed Charmin logo on it, seeing as it appeared on nearly everything else. With a catchy jingle to dance to, an area for "sledding", and a toilet mascot (I want that costume!), it seems like there's a bit of over-advertising involved. Did Charmin really rent out a building to allow people to use their toilet paper in the restrooms? It's remarkable that it was so successful, evident by the lines of people. It's like I know there are restrooms readily available in all of the surrounding stores, but I'd rather wait in line to try this new toilet paper. Sarcasm aside, this could very well be the future of advertising. To me, it's like a role reversal, where rather than someone coming to your door to sell you something, you are going into their doors to have something marketed to you.

Experiential marketing is a hip concept, one which is fresh and vibrant, but with the success of Charmin's spectacle, we will surely be seeing more of such feats in the near future. That being said, when this concept becomes widespread and we're looking at the equivalent to a flea market of advertising booths, experiential marketing will inevitably cross over, becoming an everyday norm of equal annoyance to everyone. I'd say the neon advertisements and everything else that gives Times Square its ambience is here to stay.