For years, Black Friday has been treated as a single moment on the retail calendar.
In reality, it begins much earlier.
Long before shoppers add products to carts or lining up for doorbusters, they're researching purchases, comparing options, planning budgets, and quietly building the consideration sets that will influence what they ultimately buy.
Those early signals matter.
According to research from The Trade Desk Intelligence and Appinio, two in five U.S. consumers begin researching purchases before Black Friday, and 38% of those shoppers ultimately make a purchase during that early planning period. The takeaway is clear: consumer intent isn't waiting for November. It's already forming.
Retail marketers are entering a holiday season where timing may matter as much as promotion.
EMARKETER forecasts retail growth of approximately 2.6% and ecommerce growth of 6.6% for the 2026 holiday season. Yet growth alone doesn't tell the whole story. Consumers continue to balance financial caution with the desire to purchase meaningful gifts, creating an environment where brands must communicate value, relevance, and trust rather than relying solely on discounts.
At the same time, the path to purchase is becoming increasingly fluid.
Salesforce's 2026 holiday predictions suggest that:
Taken together, these trends point to a fundamental shift: holiday shopping is no longer defined by a single channel, a single screen, or a single weekend. The consumer journey is becoming more distributed, more dynamic, and increasingly shaped by the environments people move through every day.
Which raises an important question for marketers:
If attention is already building, where is it gathering?
As the holiday season is approaching, high-demand advertising environments and premium out-of-home placements fill up quickly. A sold-out placement isn't necessarily a setback. Sometimes it's an invitation to think differently.
The most successful retail campaigns aren't always tied to the biggest placements. They're often found in the moments between destinations, where consumers are moving, waiting, browsing, and looking for what's next.
Few environments capture purchasing intent quite like malls and airports.
Mall traffic naturally increases as consumers transition into back-to-school shopping and begin thinking ahead to the holiday season. While large-format displays and digital networks often receive the most attention, there are countless ways to stay visible throughout the shopper journey.
Consider:
Airports offer a similar opportunity. Travelers spend extended periods navigating terminals, rideshare zones, shuttle routes, parking facilities, and surrounding transit networks. These environments provide a captive audience with time to notice and engage with messaging.
If traditional airport advertising is unavailable, look at:
Whether someone is heading out for a long weekend or starting their holiday travel plans, these touchpoints create opportunities to connect with consumers while they're already in motion and highly engaged with their surroundings.
While consumers may encounter brands throughout their day, many purchase decisions take shape at home.
It's where wish lists are created, products are researched, family purchases are discussed, and budgets are evaluated. Long before Black Friday arrives, consumers are already spending time considering what they'll need for holiday gatherings, gifting, entertaining, and seasonal upgrades.
Brands can stay present during these moments through a mix of physical and digital touchpoints that meet consumers where planning naturally happens.
Consider:
Door hangers bring a tangible presence to the front door, while Connected TV, streaming audio, and podcasts extend visibility into the living room, home office, and everyday routines. Together, these channels create multiple opportunities to build familiarity before shoppers enter the peak holiday purchasing period.
Whether consumers are relaxing at home, listening during household activities, or researching future purchases on their devices, these environments provide valuable moments to influence consideration early in the buying journey.
Not every valuable advertising opportunity is tied to a retail destination.
Some of the strongest consumer connections happen in the places people visit repeatedly throughout the week. These routine environments often receive less attention from advertisers, yet they provide consistent exposure during a period when holiday plans and purchasing decisions are gradually taking shape.
Place-based media allows brands to engage consumers in familiar settings where they are already spending time and paying attention to their surroundings.
Consider:
Unlike environments that may only be visited occasionally, place-based media benefits from repetition. A message seen multiple times throughout a consumer's weekly routine can help build awareness and reinforce brand familiarity long before the holiday advertising landscape becomes increasingly crowded.
In place-based environments, contextual relevance is especially important. Aligning messaging with the setting helps brands create more meaningful connections with consumers. For example, fitness and wellness brands can reach highly engaged audiences in health clubs and gyms, while home furnishings and décor brands may find a natural fit within residential communities and apartment buildings. When advertising feels relevant to the environment, it is more likely to capture attention and resonate with consumers.
Whether someone is stopping at the grocery store, heading to the gym, returning home from work, or moving through a residential community, these touchpoints create opportunities to stay visible during the everyday moments when future purchasing decisions are already beginning to form.
Black Friday may still be months away, but consumer journeys are already taking shape.
The brands that gain momentum this fall won't just be the ones that secured the biggest placements. They'll be the ones that recognized where attention was forming before everyone else did.
Three months before Black Friday is the perfect time to uncover the spaces between the spaces and build a strategy around them. Because when every brand is competing for the same moment, the smartest marketers find new ways to meet consumers wherever they are headed next.