BREAKING NEWS!!!

A rendering shows what a toilet paper will do to get noticed over the holiday season in New York. Twenty stalls will be available.


Charmin to New York: ‘Go in Style’
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH (NY Times)
Published: November 15, 2006

NEVER stand when you can sit, and never pass up a chance to go to the bathroom.

It’s the kind of oft-repeated advice that New Yorkers find useless. In Manhattan, chances to get rid of that morning coffee are few and far between.

But the search for relief is about to ease, at least for the 15.3 million people who the New York Travel Advisory Bureau predicts will visit New York over the holidays. From next Monday through Dec. 31, the Procter & Gamble Charmin brand will operate a public restroom in the heart of Times Square, amply stocked with Charmin Ultra, and complete with attendants who are assigned to clean up after each use.

“Let’s face it — there aren’t a lot of environments where a bathroom tissue message is relevant,” said Dennis Legault, brand manager for Charmin. “But the message is very relevant when people really need to go.”

The 20-stall restroom will be at 1540 Broadway, between 45th and 46th Streets, in space formerly occupied by a bar, Bar Code. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. (except for Christmas Day, when it will close at 6 p.m.). Two of the stalls will be accessible to people with disabilities, and baby changing stations will be available. There will also be a seating lounge, with its own photo-op: A six-foot stuffed Charmin bear, just waiting to have its picture taken with a visitor.

It is not on street level, but it will be hard to miss. Charmin representatives will be roaming the Times Square streets dressed as toilets, handing out fliers advertising the restroom’s location. Electronic billboards at local airports will announce it, too, and Charmin will prominently post the location on its Web site. Doris Roberts, Raymond’s mom on “Everyone Loves Raymond,” has agreed to do the ceremonial first flush on Monday.

A huge billboard over the door to the restroom itself will say “You are in New York. Go in Style.” Right under that will be a sign saying Charmin Restroom.

“Think of it as our holiday gift to New York,” Mr. Legault said.

Brand specialists say it is actually New York’s holiday gift to Charmin. “Really, how often do you get to introduce your product in a one-on-one fashion, to a highly motivated audience that is almost certain to respond with gratitude?” said James R. Gregory, chief executive of the brand consulting firm CoreBrand.

Charmin first tested the idea of free bathrooms in 2000, when it refurbished a restroom at the Ohio State Fair. “It was a way to try the idea without investing lots of money,” Mr. Legault said.

Follow-up research showed that there was a definite increase in Charmin’s sales, and that even three months later, people remembered the Potty Palooza, as Charmin calls its spiffed-up johns. The research showed that people even stayed longer at the fair. “In the past, they stayed as long as their bladders held out,” Mr. Legault said.

But a Times Square restroom is a bigger gamble for Charmin. This is the first time the brand will operate a restroom for longer than a few days. And, since Times Square gets visitors from all over the world, it will be hard to check whether the restroom has pumped up Charmin’s image, let alone its sales. Charmin representatives at the site will try to talk to visitors as they go out, even get e-mail addresses or phone numbers so they can contact them down the road. Still, Mr. Legault concedes, “evaluating this is going to be a challenge.”

Mr. Legault declined to discuss budget, except to say that the restroom is second only to television advertising among this year’s promotional costs.

Neither Charmin nor Vornado, the real estate company that owns the space, would divulge what Charmin is paying in rent. But upstairs retail space in the area goes for $150 to $225 a square foot per year, and the restroom will occupy from 7,000 to 8,000 square feet.

Cost, in fact, was the main thing keeping Charmin from doing this sooner. “Real estate is so expensive in New York, we just couldn’t be sure the economics would work,” Mr. Legault said. “But we know that New York is the center of the universe, so we just had to give it a try.”

Branding experts say it is money well spent. “This will provide a much-needed service for women, who I suspect are Charmin’s main buyers,” said Judy Hopelain, a partner at the marketing consultant Prophet Brand Strategy.

Michael Watras, president of the brand consultant Straightline International, figures that the costs, no matter how high, are a pittance for what the promotion will glean. “They’re showcasing their brand to a gazillion people in the toughest place in the toughest city,” he said. “They’ll get more publicity than any advertising campaign could ever provide.”

Still, it is not a risk-free approach. If those attendants fall down on the cleaning job, or if the lines at the restroom are too long, there could be a backlash, the branding specialists said. And, when Charmin closes the Potty Palooza at year-end, gratitude could quickly become resentment. “When you introduce something that people like, it’s never a good idea to take it away,” Mr. Gregory warned.



What more could a guy like me want for Christmas?


NUFF SAID