Run a Brutally Honest Times Square Billboard

What's the play

Buy a plain white billboard and write it like a text message instead of an ad. Lead with your real name and age, admit it was expensive, and just ask people to buy your thing.

What was the alternative?

A polished brand billboard with a slick tagline and a big logo.

Results / what moved

Cluely's site traffic quadrupled overnight and the billboard became its own meme, with TikToks and Twitter parodies turning the ad into free content. The company later raised a $15M Series A.

Cost breakdown

About $375k for four weeks across eight boards

Time to pull off

Decided in a 10 minute call, live for 4 weeks

Would you run it again?

Yes. Cluely says stripping the ad bare is what made it spread.

Steps

1. 1

   Grab a discounted slot

   Wait for an off-rate offer on a big board, then move fast when the price is right.

2. 2

   Write like a person

   Open with your name and age, admit the cost, and ask for the sale in plain words.

3. 3

   Strip the design

   Plain background, no logo soup. The starkness is what makes people stop and film it.

4. 4

   Feed the reshares

   Post the board yourself and let the parodies and TikToks carry it further than the location ever could.

Notes

Keep the copy hyper casual and specific to you. A real name and a real number beat any tagline. The win isn't the foot traffic in Times Square, it's the screenshots, so design the board to be worth filming.