Destination 2025: Key Trends For OOH In Malls
As we step into 2025, the shopping centre environment continues to evolve as a prime space for Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising. This article explores key trends and developments shaping the industry, broken down into four crucial areas: attention, investment, audience and insights.
Attention: A currency for OOH advertising
Having established audience presence and propensity, ensuring your message stands out is now a media pre-requisite. Understanding attention can outweigh many of the more arbitrary metrics the media planner is subjected to.
By 2025, we can safely assume a considerable re-writing of the media rulebook, particularly for younger audiences. Whilst OOH delivers a reassuringly consistent proposition, understanding the correlation factors with attention (movement size, sound, environment, audience differences, creativity) gives media its necessary edge.
Our 2024 study helps define effectiveness in a medium that relies on frequency, environment and impact. With numerous formats delivering only fleeting engagement, finding those environments and formats that do engage and capture our attention remains crucial to ensure people look at your ad for longer or that the ad can turn someone’s head in a busy environment.
Malls are The Attention Space in OOH. Our robust research found:
Our Panoramic mall format attracts over 3x more attention than screens on the High Street.
Motion and Audio typically amplify that attention time for our Orbit screens, between 5% and 20%.
Audio an amplifier for target audience and the message. Audio drives the first attention moment, enhances recall by +35%, and is a more effective way of connecting especially with younger audiences and males.
Overall, mall formats are 5x more likely to get the FIRST view in an environment, vs High Street. And, attention amplifies the recall effect for brands, three times the effect of the high street and 6-9 times the effect for our large formats.
With consumers increasingly inundated by digital and physical ads, key ways for capturing and maintaining attention look set to continue as a key trend this year.
Investment into the space
As shopping centres evolve into dynamic destination spaces, significant investment is driving the transformation, with contributions from property owners expanding physical footprints and enhancing leisure offerings and brands revitalising their physical retail presence through new store openings as well as our own investment into growing our out-of-home (OOH) format portfolios.
New Store Openings
Shopping centres are experiencing a revival, with new store openings driving foot traffic and offering fresh opportunities for advertisers. Several notable examples from 2025 illustrate this trend:
Last year, Sephora expanded beyond London for the first time, opening stores in Manchester's Trafford Centre, Newcastle's Metrocentre and Eldon Square, Birmingham's Bullring, and other locations, reflecting a strategic push to reach regional audiences.
Haribo announced its 11th UK store at Bluewater, Kent, showcasing its commitment to experiential retailing in high-traffic centres.
Holland & Barrett plans to open 50 new stores next year, building on the momentum of 35 new sites in the past 12 months, signaling robust investment in wellness retail.
IKEA UK confirmed the highly anticipated launch of its Oxford Street city store in spring 2025, further blending urban convenience with its traditional large-format retail model.
Frasers Group is set to open flagship Sports Direct stores in Westfield London and Stratford, following successful new openings in Cardiff, Belfast, and Gateshead’s Metrocentre.
Gymshark will open three permanent stores in 2025, including in Manchester’s Trafford Centre and London’s Westfield White City, alongside a European debut in Amsterdam.
These openings highlight the growing confidence of brands in the shopping centre space and underscore the vital role of OOH advertising in capitalizing on this resurgence.
Mall Developments
Mall owners are continually investing into the evolution of the space, integrating cutting-edge architecture and immersive activities. Innovations like digital interactive displays, a mix of retail and leisure as well as mixed-use spaces that are all geared towards attracting audiences through a multitude of experiences.
A standout example is the Metrocentre’s £6 million redevelopment of its Green Mall entrance. The redesign incorporates green walls, planter pockets, and organic architectural elements, creating a welcoming, eco-friendly gateway. The project also introduces three new outward-facing food and beverage anchor units spanning 18,000 square feet, a scheme purposefully designed to enhance the malls day-to-night economy and better align with evolving consumer preferences for vibrant, mixed-use environments that combine retail, leisure, and dining.
Expanding Our Networks
2024 was a year of growth for our networks, having added over 70 new full-motion screens to our national digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) portfolio, including prime shopping centre locations such as Westquay, Festival Place, East Kilbride, Thistles, Princes Quay, Eastgate, Market Place Bolton and Liberty Romford.
But we’re not finished yet! We have more announcements lined up for the start of 2025 as we focus on continuing our digital portfolio expansion; a plan built upon three pillars of focus: 1) New sites, 2) Tech upgrades and 3) New environments.
We’re excited to soon share more about the development of our expanded network’s reach and enhanced quality of engagement opportunities for our clients in 2025.
Audiences & Data
Brand cut-through is increasingly about understanding changing audience dynamics. Often it is about effectively reaching hard to reach affluent and Gen YZ audiences, who are time poor and seeking different experiences in their everyday lives and leisure time.
Malls reach a young, dynamic retail and leisure audience, delivering a premium experience. Audiences like to put themselves in a premium and aspirational mindset that fits the environment. Seeking out these moments is paramount in driving effective brand engagement.
To confirm, nearly 40% of mall visitors are 18-34; an index of 188 for 18-24s and 173 for Gen Z. 61% are ABC1 and in terms of life stage, audiences are Pre-Family and those with Children older than 7. 64% of visitors work, with nearly half working full-time. These audiences see the mall as a premium environment; nearly three-quarters of shoppers feel the mall is a suitable location for premium brands, well above the number for other shopping locations. Mall Retail formats are particularly relevant for ad categories like fashion and health and beauty. Audiences feel more positive around factors like being able to experience brands, being with friends and family and liking the environment. They feel comfortable, even excited, and they are happy to spend.
As locations that combine shopping and leisure experiences, there is more to attract people to stay longer and be immersed in the space. Two thirds of people are using Malls for dining out, half for visiting the cinema and around 45% for other leisure activities.
Data
Data is an unescapable component of understanding audiences and how media works. In 2025, it will be the bedrock of any media plan, but we should be more challenging as to the data sources we use. First party mobile-sourced data gives us inescapable proof as to audience presence in response to moments, occasions, events and habitual behaviour. In Out of Home, we can no longer rely on the foundations of the working day to measure audience. That concept has gone with the entrenchment of flexible working.
DataJam allows us to track impressions and visitors to our environment and presence around screens. Tracking devices range from one in the vicinity of our unmissable large format Orbit screens, to up to 12 in some malls that connect audiences to D6 screens. The results are consistent and accountable and sit alongside other insight and data that builds a picture of the changing leisure and shopping experience.
Understanding the importance of our Friday, weekend and seasonal audiences, how visits peak around occasions like Valentine’s Day and summer holidays and locations adjacent to specific retailers enhances our targeting and creative capability.
As we navigate 2025, the shopping centre environment remains a vibrant and innovative space for OOH advertising. By focusing on attention, leveraging ongoing investments, embracing the leisure boom, and connecting with diverse audiences, brands can unlock unparalleled opportunities for growth and impact.
Authors: Samuel Maskell, Marketing Director / Nick Mawditt, Marketing Consultant