# Tower28 spritzed thousands of NYC passersby from a custom billboard, turned one product into June's best OOH case study

*Interactive button delivered product trial at scale without a single staffer handing out samples.*

By **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA, Principal** — The Stash Edge, Hako Shikin LLC.
Published 2026-07-23.

Canonical: https://www.pops4.com/stash/articles/tower28-2026-07-23t18-1
Subject: Tower28
Tags: ooh, experiential, sampling, beauty, interactive, activation

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In June, Tower28 Beauty installed a custom billboard in New York City with a large button that dispensed its SOS Daily Skin Rescue Spray directly onto passersby, according to Glossy. The interactive panel ran all summer, giving the industry a documented case study in converting foot traffic into product trial without staffing a single brand ambassador.

The mechanics were clean. A pedestrian pressed the button, the billboard misted them with the spray, they walked away having used the product. Tower28 founder Amy Liu told Glossy the activation spritzed thousands of people over the campaign window. No coupon required, no QR code, no follow-up ask. The billboard did the sampling.

This worked because it collapsed three steps into one. Traditional sampling requires a human intermediary, a decision point, and a take-home packet the consumer may never open. Tower28's billboard made the product the entire experience. Press, mist, done. The spray format enabled the play — a cream or serum cannot be dispensed from a street-facing panel. The hero SKU's form factor became the distribution method. The activation also borrowed urgency from urban velocity. A New Yorker walking past a static ad ignores it. A New Yorker walking past a button presses it, especially if others are pressing it. The billboard turned product trial into a reflex.

The steal for a small physical-product brand starts with identifying whether your hero SKU has a trigger-able format. A spray, a scent, a sound, a texture sample — anything that delivers value in two seconds. If your product requires explanation, this play does not work. If it delivers a immediate sensory payoff, you can run a smaller version without a Manhattan media buy.

Rent a booth or a corner at a local street fair, farmers market, or festival. Build a simple standing panel with your branding and a **large** button or lever. Wire the button to a small pump system that mists your product when pressed. Expect to spend **$150 to $400** on the pump rig if you source components yourself, or hire a local fabricator to build it for **$800 to $1,500**. The panel itself can be foamcore or plywood, printed locally for **$100 to $300**. Total outlay: **under $2,000** for a reusable system you can deploy at multiple events.

Position the activation where people wait — near a coffee cart, a crosswalk, a festival entry line. Let the button do the work. Track consumption by counting how many units you refill. If you mist **2,000 people** over a weekend and convert **2 percent** to a QR-scanned landing page, that is **40 warm leads** who experienced the product before they saw the price. The urban lesson applies at any scale: when the product is the entire interaction, you do not need a pitch.

Tower28's play works because it weaponized impatience. The next brands to win OOH will be the ones that stop asking people to remember a URL and start giving them a reason to stop walking.

## The takeaway

Interactive OOH converts when the product is the activation and the format enables instant trial without human intervention.

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## Publisher

**Hako Shikin LLC** — Virginia Beach, Virginia. Founded 1997. ASI 217876 · DUNS 18-204-6339.
Principal and author: **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA**.

- Author: https://www.huanggoodman.com/about
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