Woman Spent $250 to Have Her Face on a Billboard in Times Square (Exclusive)

When it comes to advertising, sometimes you have to think outside of the box. 

Rachel Carlisle was looking for fun ways to promote her cookbook when another content creator suggested she look into ad spaces in Times Square. After a bit of research, Carlisle learned that a billboard with a custom QR code would be an easy — and surprisingly affordable — way to get her cookbook in front of thousands.

In the end, she paid $250 for a 15-second advertisement that would play every hour for 24 hours. 

Carlisle, 28, spoke with PEOPLE exclusively about all the planning that went into creating an advertisement for all of New York City to see. 

“There’s so much competition with marketing, you have to constantly be finding new things,” she explains.

On TikTok, she said that her goal was to sell more cookbooks than Betty Crocker, which she originally planned to put in the advertisement. Although she couldn’t use the name of her competitor in the billboard due to copyright issues, the goal still stands. 

“I’ve always said I want to sell a million cookbooks. That was my goal,” she shares. “I was posting my recipes, then somebody commented that I needed to aim higher. They said, ‘Betty Crocker sold 63 million cookbooks to date.’ So I thought that should be the new goal.” 

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The ad featured an image of Carlisle lounging in a white robe, captioned, “Help me beat her record of cookbooks sold.” However, Carlisle clarified that she has no ill will toward Betty Crocker; she just likes having a goal to work toward.

Carlisle says designing the ad itself didn’t take “long at all.” She used Canva to make sure the measurements were right and made a custom QR code that would direct viewers to her website.

She shared the advertising adventure on TikTok, where her video went viral, amassing nearly 420,000 views.

Carlisle says she will most likely be buying more advertisement space in Times Square in the future and thinks others should follow in her footsteps and “just go for it.”

“Read their requirements. I think it’s a cool thing they offer,” she says. “It should be advertised more, but it’s a really cool thing. I think anybody that wants to do it should just go for it. Why not?”