Is all the Gossip Girl marketing working?

If you live in New York City there is no way you haven't seen the new advertising campaign for the CW's Gossip Girl. Similar in concept to last year's "OMFG" campaign, the CW has taken the sex sells mentality and run with it. But the best part of these ads are the quotes they've used from some of the shows harshest critics, (Ex: "Mind blowingly inappropriate" - Parents Television Council) turning them into a brilliant reverse marketing scheme. Give teenagers something to watch that they think their parent's won't approve of and they'll eat it right up.These ads have been up for weeks, so why am I suddenly talking about them? I was curious about the success of this campaign now that the show has been back on the air for several weeks. Ironically, I was in a sociology recitation yesterday where Gossip Girl came up as a topic of discussion. I'd say less than half of the group had actually seen they show, but everybody had heard of it and they all had something to say about it. A few students even said that they were so impressed by the ads in particular that they were either tempted to start watching or actually tuned in to see what all the hype was about. But if that's enough, Monday night's episode had a series high of 3.7 million viewers and helped the CW win No.1 for the night with adults 18 to 34. Maybe it's just me, but I'd say somethings working.
Speaking of Monday's episode, personally I thought it was quite excellent and wonderfully scandalous, not to mention HOT!! (in several ways) I'm not huge into recapping myself but if you're interested you should check out Tim Stack's Recap on EW.com. I found it hilarious, plus I too noticed the large Vitamin Water refrigerator, product placement much!

Gossip Girl airs Mondays at 8pm on the CW.