Shoppers say in-store ads move the basket

On 17 September 2026, the OAAA released The Power of the Human Medium: OOH Across Experiential + Retail, a survey fielded by The Harris Poll on 4–5 August among 2,015 US adults, with the analysis run on 1,474 adults aged 18–64. The headline: 86% say they would take action after seeing a retail out-of-home ad that interests them. The more useful numbers sit underneath. 64% say OOH inside the retail environment affects their purchase decisions, 73% would visit a nearby store the same day if an ad showed a product in stock for pickup, and 87% would redeem a time-limited offer delivered through OOH.

Why it matters: the industry body is no longer arguing that out-of-home builds awareness somewhere upstream. It is arguing that the screen closest to the shelf, carrying the most specific message, is the one that moves people. That is the slot a beauty venue screen already occupies. The catch is that every figure here is what people say they would do.

What the survey found

2,015 US adults surveyed online 4–5 Aug 2026; analysis on 1,474 adults 18–64; released 17 Sep 2026 (OAAA / The Harris Poll — primary).
86% would act after an interesting retail OOH ad: 45% would visit the retailer’s site or app, 42% search the retailer online, 33% visit a store (OAAA — primary, self-reported, directional).
64% say OOH inside the store affects purchase decisions; 59% say the same of OOH immediately outside a store, 50% of OOH seen in the days before shopping (OAAA — primary, attitudinal, directional).
73% would visit a nearby store the same day if an ad showed a product in stock for same-day pickup; 87% would redeem a time-limited OOH offer (OAAA via Yahoo Finance — primary, attitudinal, directional).
77% recall recently seeing retail OOH; 69% say it feels more human than online or mobile ads (OAAA — primary, directional).
No beauty or health category breakout is published; the full report is members-only (BDOOH observation).

What happened

This is not the OAAA study that ran earlier this year, and it is worth keeping the two apart. The March Power of Proximity work with Winterberry Group surveyed marketers and found they now plan OOH as a path-to-purchase channel, which we covered in OOH’s job is the store visit. This one surveys shoppers. Both carry an “86%” headline, and they measure different things; the figures should not be mixed.

The shape of the answers is the story. Stated influence rises the closer the ad sits to the purchase: 50% for ads seen in the days before shopping, 59% just outside the store, 64% inside it. And the two scenario questions are not about brand at all. They are about availability (the item is here, today) and urgency (the offer ends soon). Those are the conditions under which people claim they would change their plans.

The online response also outweighs the physical one: more people say they would open the retailer’s site or search for it (45% and 42%) than walk into a store (33%). That fits the pattern our research on OOH amplifying digital describes. The screen tends to start a search rather than finish a sale on the spot.

What it means for beauty

Stock and offer are the triggers a salon can actually pull. A mall screen can only claim an item is in stock somewhere nearby. A salon screen sits a few metres from a retail shelf that holds the product the stylist has just used. “In stock at this salon” and “today’s offer at the desk” map straight onto the two scenarios the survey tested, and a beauty venue can make both literally true. It is the same point we made in beauty’s edge is the trigger.
That needs creative that changes, not a fixed loop. Availability and time limits go stale by the hour. Our dynamic creative research is clear that most dynamic creative renders to a static frame. That is fine here: a stock flag or an offer end time is exactly the kind of simple rule-driven swap that works. The dayparting guide turns it into a schedule.
Measure the claim yourself. An 87% stated appetite for time-limited offers is a pitch line. A redemption count is evidence. An offer code or QR on the salon screen, redeemed at the desk, turns the survey’s hypothetical into your own number, which is the case our QR and O2O attribution research makes for high-dwell venues.

The caveat: intention is not effect

Everything here is stated intention. Nobody was exposed to an ad and then observed. People were asked what they would do in hypothetical situations, and survey respondents reliably overstate how much they would act on a good offer. None of it is incrementality or measured lift, and none of it should be quoted to a buyer as a conversion rate.

Three more limits. The study was commissioned by the industry’s own trade body and sponsored by its foundation, so it was designed to make the case for the medium. It is US-only and has no beauty breakout, so nothing in it describes salon clients specifically. And the full report is behind OAAA membership, so question wording and subgroup cuts could only be checked as far as the public release. Read it as a signal about which messages to test, not as proof that they work.

Sources

OAAA, “New OAAA Research: OOH Turns Attention into Action Across the Consumer Retail Journey” (17 Sep 2026, oaaa.org and GlobeNewswire): primary for the method (The Harris Poll, online, 4–5 Aug 2026, 2,015 US adults, analysis on 1,474 aged 18–64, sponsored by FOARE) and the 86% / 45% / 42% / 33%, 64% / 59% / 50%, 77% and 69% figures. Yahoo Finance reproduction of the release: for the 73% same-day-visit and 87% time-limited-offer figures. invidis (16 Sep 2026) and OOH Today: trade coverage, corroborating. All survey figures are self-reported attitudes and are tagged directional as evidence of effect. The survey contains no beauty data; the beauty read-across is analytical and rests on the linked Research. It is a separate study from OAAA and Winterberry Group’s Power of Proximity (Mar 2026).