Should You Advertise in Times Square? Left Hand Agency CPG High Five

3 hours ago

4 min read

Before I ran a media agency, I interned at Late Night with David Letterman. The Ed Sullivan Theater is a few blocks up Broadway from Times Square, so for a while it was basically my neighborhood. The first few times I walked through it, I was dazzled. The lights, the screens, the sheer size of it all. A few months later I didn't even look up. By the end I was plotting routes to avoid it entirely, because there are only so many times you can get stuck behind a family of six stopping dead on the sidewalk to photograph the lights.

Media buying turned out to work the same way. When I was a new buyer, the razzle dazzle options were the ones I wanted to run. I still love a big swing, but I've learned the cool option and the effective option aren't always the same thing. Times Square might be the ultimate test of that. So the next time a client asks "What about Times Square?" (and they do), here are five reasons I'd say yes, and five reasons I'd tell them to keep their money in their pocket.

Five reasons to to advertise in Time Square

Crowded Times Square at dusk with bright billboards and taxis, overlaid with THE OPPORTUNITY.

1. A picture is worth a thousand press releases.

Okay, maybe not a thousand. But a lot of the value of a Times Square board shows up after the flight starts, in the earned media around it: the social posts, the press pickup, the photo that ends up in every sales deck for the next five years. Here's the catch. That only happens when there's a reason to talk about it. The placement is unusual, the creative is provocative, or there's a story attached. A nice product shot and a logo isn't news. If earned reach is the goal, build the whole plan around that goal and make the creative earn it.

2. Sales might not be the point.

Sometimes the KPI isn't units. It's a bigger distribution deal, a funding round, or a category buyer who needs convincing. In that case the board is talking to a very small audience with a very specific job. An investor who walks past (or scrolls past) your billboard sees a brand that looks bigger than it is. And sometimes looking big is how you get big.

3. It's the biggest market in the country.

New York is the #1 DMA in the US, with more eyeballs than anywhere else. If you're going to make a splash, a lot of brands feel like this is the first stop, and it's hard to argue with that logic.

4. The whole world walks through it.

The crowd isn't just New Yorkers. It's tourists from every state and a long list of countries, in one of the most photographed spots on earth. The Times Square Alliance counted over 283,000 people a day in 2024. That's a double-edged sword (more on that in a minute), but if you want a diverse national and international audience in one place, there's nowhere else quite like it.

5. It's cheaper than you think. Sort of.

Is the check big? Yes. But Times Square delivers a massive volume of impressions, so on a cost per thousand basis it can actually be efficient. Pricing swings a lot depending on the board, the timing, and the share of voice you're buying, so there's no one number to quote. The point is that expensive at the investment level can still be reasonable at the impression level. Those are two different questions, and the second one is the one people forget to ask.

Five reasons not to advertise in Time Square

Crowded Times Square with giant billboards and a pink banner reading THE TRADE-OFF over a busy city crowd.

1. It ate your whole budget.

If one board is chewing up 80% of your media spend, that's not a strategy. Moving sales in markets the size of New York or LA takes serious money, and it takes more than one channel working together. A single board, no matter how big, can't carry a sales lift goal on its own.

2. Your customers aren't standing there.

Times Square isn't really a local audience. It's people who work in that part of Midtown, plus tourists from everywhere. Most of the New York market will never see your board. So if you're trying to measure impact in the New York DMA, good luck, because a big chunk of your audience already flew home to Ohio and Osaka. Tracking that back to sales gets tricky fast.

3. You're one of a hundred screaming screens.

Share of voice matters, and Times Square is about as cluttered as ad environments get. Every surface is lit up and moving. Breaking through takes great creative and a little luck, and plenty of boards just turn into wallpaper.

4. Only your mom will be impressed.

I'm half kidding. But a lot of Times Square buys come down to a founder or executive wanting to see their name in lights, bought as a one-off blip with no plan around it. If the reason is an earnings release, an investor pitch, or looking big to category buyers, fine. That's a strategy. "The CEO wants a picture" is not.

5. The same money could actually prove something.

Take that budget into a small or mid-sized market and run a real omnichannel test with CTV, OOH, retail media, and in-store all working together. You'll get a clean read on whether your advertising moves product, and then you know exactly what to scale. A Times Square board can't give you that answer. A well-built test market can.

So, Times Square? Maybe. It's dazzling the first time, for the people walking by and for the person signing the check. Just know which job you're hiring it to do before you sign. And if the honest answer is "so we can take a picture," call your mom first. She'll be thrilled for free.

We are Left Hand Agency, a CPG media buying agency helping brands grow with short and long-term strategies. Our memory-driven strategies deliver results your marketing and finance teams will champion.