Black Friday is still a big shopping experience but shoppers are choosing their moments carefully
2025 forecasts for the Black Friday weekend ranged from £3.9bn (Finder/Censuswide) to £10.2bn (Barclays), but the shape of the story was consistent everywhere: Black Friday was the busiest single retail trading day of the year, with transaction volumes up 62.5% on the average 2025 day (Barclays). Online spend over the three months to November rose 6.7% year-on-year (ONS). At the same time, overall November card spend actually fell 1.1% - the sharpest monthly drop since February 2021 - as shoppers held back ahead of the Autumn Budget, announced just two days before Black Friday. The takeaway: this isn't a spending spree - it's a focused moment. Brands with the right message, in the right place, at the right time win.
Footfall backs this up too. Store visits dipped slightly on the day itself (-3% YoY), but the wider weekend told a healthier story - up 0.7% overall, with Sunday alone up 5%. High streets outperformed retail parks and shopping centres across the weekend. People are still turning up in person; they're just being more selective about when.
The channel doing consistent work: OOH
According to Outsmart, out-of-home spend grew during this period, up 4.5% in Q4. What makes OOH different from almost every other channel is its ability to reach people fast. IPA TouchPoints data puts weekly OOH reach among UK adults at somewhere between 90–95%, a level of blanket coverage no digital channel comes close to matching on its own.
What OOH does for Black Friday shoppers
TGI data shows that more than 1 in 4 UK adults bought something during Black Friday or Cyber Monday last year. Compared with the general population, those shoppers are dramatically more likely to respond to OOH:
- 83% more likely to share content about an OOH ad on social media
- 72% more likely to download an app after seeing one
- 67% more likely to purchase a product or service online after seeing an OOH ad
- 67% more likely to talk to friends about an OOH ad they've seen
- 60% more likely to go to a store to buy the product
- 59% more likely to have seen an OOH ad in a pub in the past week
- 21% more likely to genuinely enjoy a night out at the pub
We can see a pattern emerge: Black Friday shoppers aren't just seeing OOH ads, they're acting on them - online, in-store, and socially. Industry research more broadly backs this up, citing that up to 74–79% of people take some action after seeing an OOH ad, whether that's a search, a website visit or a social follow. Exactly the bridge brands need during a shopping weekend where the final purchase might happen on a phone five minutes after someone walked past a poster.
Hospitality gets pulled into the moment too
Black Friday isn't just a retail event anymore - it's spilling into hospitality. Food & drink transactions rose 28.9% versus the average day on Black Friday itself (Barclays), as shopping trips turned into eating and drinking occasions. Pubs are on a genuine roll: managed pub sales were up 2.5% in November 2025, a tenth consecutive month of growth, even as bars and restaurants declined. Some pubs are now running Black Friday-style promotions of their own - meaning pubs are becoming a legitimate, high-attention OOH environment, not just a retail afterthought.
What this means for 2026 planning
2026 is shaping up to be another promotion-sensitive Black Friday, not a return to pre-2019 spending highs. Categories that rely more on physical, in-person shopping - clothing and footwear, electronics, beauty and fragrance - are where OOH's strengths line up best with where the demand is.
The opportunity for 2026 is straightforward: pair strong weekly OOH reach with the flexibility of DOOH, place it where footfall and pre-purchase inspiration naturally happens, and let it do what the data shows; get people talking, searching, sharing, and buying, both on the high street and on their phones five minutes later.
Sources:
- Finder/Censuswide – Black Friday weekend spend forecast
- Barclays – total spend forecast, transaction volume data, food & drink transaction uplift
- PwC – spend forecast
- VoucherCodes / Insider Media – four-day weekend spend forecast, category performance data
- ONS (Office for National Statistics) – Retail Sales GB, November card spending, non-food store sales volumes, online spend values
- Sensormatic / ShopperTrak – footfall data
- MRI Software – footfall and visitor data by destination type
- Adobe Analytics – online sales data
- CGA by NIQ/RSM Hospitality Business Tracker – pub, bar and restaurant sales performance
- Morning Advertiser – hospitality trade context and operator promotions
- Klarna – footwear/brand ranking data
- Shopify / BYYD – category performance
- THG – beauty and wellness category growth
- AA/WARC (Advertising Association / World Advertising Research Center) – UK Advertising Expenditure Report, total ad spend figures
- Outsmart – OOH and DOOH spend share data
- IPA TouchPoints – OOH weekly reach data
- ExchangeWire – media/advertising landscape commentary
- Media Agency Group – media landscape commentary
- TGI - Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopper OOH response data
- Route – audience reach data (Alight Media figures)
- KPMG / The Guardian – 2026 GDP growth forecast
- Statista – 2025/26 category forecasts