A shopping journey rarely starts at the store entrance. Someone may notice a retailer days before making a purchase, search for a product online, encounter another message near the store, and make a final decision once inside. New research from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and The Harris Poll shows how retail OOH can influence that journey at different moments, from early awareness to digital search, store visits, and purchase decisions. For media planners, that distinction matters. An OOH impression does not exist independently of its surroundings. Location and proximity help determine what a consumer may be able to do next.
According to the research, 77% of adults ages 18 to 64 recall recently seeing retail OOH advertising, with recall increasing to 81% among Gen Z adults. But the more interesting point is where that exposure sits within the broader retail journey.
Consumers reported encountering and being influenced by retailer OOH advertising from the days leading up to shopping through the point when they are already inside a store. The study found that 50% said retailer OOH advertising impacts their purchase decisions days before shopping. That figure rises to 59% immediately outside the store and 64% inside the store. The research does not mean every OOH exposure will produce a purchase, nor does it establish that proximity alone causes the increase. What it shows is that consumers report greater influence of OOH advertising closer to the retail environment.
That gives planners a useful way to think about physical media. A screen earlier in the journey might introduce a brand or product. A placement along a retail corridor can reinforce consideration. And a message just outside or inside a shopping environment can reach someone when the next step is right in front of them. The format may still be OOH, but the context surrounding the impression has changed.
One of the clearest findings from the study is that physical advertising and digital consumer behavior are not separate journeys. Among consumers who see a retail OOH ad that interests them, 86% say they would take some form of action. The reported actions include:
This is an important distinction when evaluating OOH. Seeing an advertisement in the physical world does not mean the next interaction also has to be physical. Someone can encounter a message while walking through a shopping district and search for the retailer seconds later on their phone. Another consumer might visit the website before eventually entering the store. The physical impression can therefore become one point within a much broader customer journey. For omnichannel planners, the question becomes less about choosing between physical and digital media and more about understanding how one can lead into the other.
The research becomes particularly interesting when the advertising contains information a consumer can act on immediately. Seventy-three percent of respondents said they would visit a nearby store that same day if an OOH ad told them a specific product was in stock and available for same-day pickup. The study also found that 87% would redeem a time-limited offer delivered through an OOH ad. These findings highlight the importance of relevance at the moment of exposure.
A general brand message and a message telling someone that the product they want is available nearby are performing different jobs. The second message contains information tied to both place and time. The consumer is not simply being made aware of something. They are being given information that could help determine their next action.
For digital out-of-home (DOOH) in particular, this is a useful planning principle. Digital screens create opportunities for messaging to reflect location, timing, inventory, promotions, or other relevant conditions when the appropriate data and campaign infrastructure are available. The strategic value is not simply that the screen is digital. It is that the message can potentially become more useful in the context where it appears.
This idea is especially relevant to retail and commerce environments. Smartify's network includes digital placements across real-world settings where people commute, shop, dine, work, and gather, as well as Smartify Marketplaces, which places digital displays within shopping and entertainment destinations. The OAAA research provides broader industry context for why environments like these are worth examining carefully.
Planners should think beyond the number of impressions a location can produce and consider what the audience is doing when the impression occurs. Someone walking through a shopping center is in a different context from someone seeing an advertisement earlier in their day. A person standing outside a retailer is different again. That does not automatically make one placement more valuable than another. Each ad plays a different role. What changes is the relationship between the advertising exposure and the consumer's possible next action.
The OAAA report also looked at live brand experiences, highlighting the role the physical environment can play in helping people discover products. Among consumers who had attended live marketing events, 30% later searched for more information, 30% looked for the product in stores, and 27% later purchased the product. The research also found that 40% ultimately made a purchase among consumers who had attended these events.
Retail environments were a significant part of those experiences. The report says 58% recalled experiential marketing at retail pop-ups, while 57% had encountered activations in shopping districts, city plazas, or markets. OOH and experiential marketing are different disciplines, but the findings point toward a similar principle: physical encounters can become starting points for actions that continue after the initial exposure. The real-world interaction is one part of the journey rather than an isolated event.
The research offers a broader way to think about OOH within retail media planning. Reach still matters, as does frequency. But context should be part of the conversation as well.
Those questions become particularly important as OOH moves closer to commerce environments. The OAAA and Harris Poll findings show that consumers are noticing retail OOH before, near, and inside stores, while also moving between physical advertising, digital search, retailer websites, apps, and physical locations.
That makes the retail journey increasingly difficult to divide neatly into "offline" and "online." A better way to understand it may be as a sequence of connected moments, some digital and some physical, with OOH positioned at several points along the way. And as the research suggests, where those moments happen can influence what happens next.