Vistar Media today published research with Omnicom Media and Annalect showing that store location details placed in the middle of a programmatic digital out-of-home creative lowered visit intent by 10% against an ad carrying no location at all, while the same information placed at the top or bottom raised visit and purchase intent among 7,200 consumers, by as much as 116% for impulse-buy sweets and chocolate.

In Short

Vistar Media tested outdoor screen ads with and without a small "where to buy it" box, and moved that box to the top, middle or bottom of the ad. When the box sat at the top or bottom, people said they were more likely to visit or buy, especially for sweets and chocolate, but when it was squeezed into the middle, overall visit intent fell below the version with no box at all. The results come from a survey in which people were shown the ads on purpose, so they measure what people said they would do, not what they later did in a shop.

What the study tested

The research is titled "The store locator effect: How store information moves audiences from screen to store." It was released from Amsterdam today, September 23, 2026, alongside a full report on Vistar Media's website, and was produced by Vistar Media's Creative Studio with Omnicom Media and Annalect, the holding company's data and analytics unit.

According to Vistar Media, 7,200 consumers aged 18 to 59 took part in a forced-exposure study between February and April 2026. The announcement places them in the Netherlands; the report itself does not name the country. Each respondent was randomly shown an image of an outdoor environment containing a vertical 1080 x 1920 screen, the portrait format common on street furniture and transit panels in programmatic digital out-of-home. Depending on the test group, the screen carried a control creative with no location details, or one of three versions with a store locator at the top, in the middle or at the bottom.

The report defines the three placements precisely. At the top, store information sits close to the brand logo, where attention tends to fall first. In the middle, it is folded into the main campaign message and blends with other copy and imagery. At the bottom, it appears below the primary creative in its own strip. The illustrative creative used throughout the report, an orange snack advertisement for a brand called Nura, shows the difference: the top and bottom versions carry a white bar with a pin and the address "Baker Street 23", while the middle version works the address into the headline as "Find yours at Baker Street 23". The report labels the Nura panel an illustrative example and does not name the brands actually tested.

Three campaign categories were covered. Retail takes in businesses selling through physical locations, with grocery, home improvement and apparel given as examples. Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) cover fast food and coffee chains. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) cover food, beverage and other everyday products. Retail and QSR creatives were scored on visit intent, CPG creatives on purchase intent, which reflects the fact that a packaged snack is bought inside someone else's shop. The study also recorded brand recognition, brand appreciation and ad appreciation.

Comparing each variant against an unexposed control is the logic that underpins a holdout study, although here the control is a creative version rather than a group withheld from media. According to the report, benchmarking each placement against that control allowed the research to isolate the effect of placement alone.

The middle of the screen fails outright

The press release describes middle placement as the weaker option, where store information competed with headlines and imagery and was more easily overlooked. The report's own wording is gentler still, calling the middle placement "less consistent." The chart that accompanies that sentence is blunter than either.

Across the study, the overall results by placement were as follows, according to the report:

PlacementVisit intent vs controlPurchase intent vs control
Top+1%+20%
Middle-10%+7%
Bottom+9%+8%

Middle placement did not merely lag. On visit intent it produced a result below the control, meaning that respondents who saw an address woven into the headline were, on average, less inclined to say they would visit than those who saw no address at all. On purchase intent, the middle version still recorded a positive 7%, which is presumably why the report settles on "less consistent" rather than "negative." Neither the release nor the report discusses the minus 10% figure in the text, and neither says whether it cleared a significance threshold.

The report's explanation is visual crowding. When store information sat in the middle of the creative, it competed with headlines, imagery and other elements; top and bottom placements gave it its own space, and respondents could recognise it almost instantly.

The table also complicates the headline claim that top and bottom placements "delivered the strongest results." That holds for each outcome taken separately, but not for both at once. Top placement produced the strongest purchase intent lift at 20%, yet moved overall visit intent by just 1%. Bottom placement produced the strongest visit intent lift at 9%, while its purchase intent lift of 8% was only a point above the middle version. No single position won on both measures.

Category results are far larger than the averages

The overall figures blend very different categories, and the category breakdown in the report is where the larger numbers sit. According to Vistar Media:

  • For Retail, bottom placement increased visit intent by 35% compared with the control group.
  • For QSR, bottom placement lifted visit intent by 24%.
  • For impulse-buy CPG products such as sweets and chocolate, purchase intent rose by 116% with bottom placement and 110% with top placement.

These results sit awkwardly beside the headline averages, and the reason matters for anyone citing the study. The press release reports the overall Retail and QSR visit intent lift from bottom placement as 9%. The report shows that the individual category lifts were 35% for Retail and 24% for QSR. An overall figure far below both category figures suggests the blended number includes results or weightings that the public material does not break out. The report does not explain how the overall figures were calculated.

The impulse-buy result carries a second wrinkle. For CPG as a whole, top placement was clearly the stronger position: 20% against 8% for bottom. For impulse products within CPG, bottom edged ahead at 116% against 110% for top. The press release mentioned only that impulse-buy purchase intent "rose by over 110%"; the report attaches that figure to top placement and gives the higher number to bottom. Whether the six-point gap between the two is meaningful cannot be judged without the subgroup sample sizes, which are not disclosed.

Nor is the baseline. A lift of 116% means purchase intent more than doubled against the control, but on a low starting share that could still be a modest absolute change. The report reads the result as evidence that store locators become more valuable when a purchase decision can be made on the spot. That interpretation is plausible - a chocolate bar requires little deliberation, and an address removes the one remaining obstacle - but the underlying percentages that would show its scale are not published.

Design carries its own effect

Placement was not the only variable. According to the report, two executional elements appeared repeatedly across the highest-performing creatives: high contrast between the store information and the rest of the creative, and a familiar location pin icon.

The report quantifies both. A location pin was associated with a 16% uplift in visit intent. High-contrast design was associated with a 10% uplift in visit or purchase intent, depending on the category.

The way the report describes these findings suggests they were identified by examining which features recurred among the best performers, rather than tested as separately randomised conditions in the way placement was. The report does not state what the 16% and 10% were measured against: the no-locator control, or locator versions without a pin or without strong contrast. If the former, the figures describe the full effect of a well-designed locator. If the latter, they describe the incremental value of the design choice alone. The distinction changes how the numbers would be used, and the published material does not resolve it.

What is clear is the direction. On a panel that a pedestrian may glance at for a second or two, store information that separates visually from the brand message is more likely to register, and a symbol that needs no reading does the job faster than text.

When a second brand divides attention

The fourth finding cuts against the others. When a store locator prominently featured another brand - a supermarket, a dealership or a retailer - brand recognition for the advertised product sometimes declined, according to the report, even when the relevant visit or purchase intent metric remained strong. The additional branding appeared to divide attention between advertiser and reseller.

This matters most for advertisers that sell through third parties, which describes most packaged goods and automotive brands. A manufacturer that adds a supermarket logo to tell viewers where to find the product may help intent while diluting recognition of its own name. The report singles out campaigns focused on brand recognition, particularly for newer or emerging brands, as those where the trade-off is most relevant. It does not quantify the recognition loss, and describes it as occurring "sometimes" rather than consistently.

Separately, the report states that adding store information did not negatively affect brand appreciation or ad appreciation across the research.

What the companies said

Martine Hammink, VP, Creative Studio & Creative Solutions at Vistar Media, framed the results around creative detail in the announcement. "This research shows that small creative decisions, like where a store locator sits and how it's designed, have a quantifiably meaningful effect on how audiences respond. When thoughtfully considered, a simple store locator becomes a measurable driver of consumer intent," Hammink said. "It's not a one-size-fits-all approach, but we hope this study gives brands and creative teams real evidence to make their creative outdoor advertising decisions more intentional and impactful."

In the report, she added: "It's not simply about adding location information; where it sits, how clearly it stands out and how it works with the rest of the creative all matter."

Annelijne Brouwer, listed in the report as Data Strategy Manager at Vistar Media, pointed to the gap the study was meant to fill. "Store locators are widely used in DOOH, but there's been little data on the difference they actually make. What makes this research exciting is seeing how strongly intent can shift based on placement and category."

From the agency side, Chris van Kampen, Strategic Insights & Product Lead Media Science at Annalect, said the collaboration was able to "find meaningful insights, showcase the strength of the proposition with relevant nuance, and drive better outcomes for advertisers, publishers, and agencies."

Roos Goesz, OOH Director at Omnicom NL, tied the findings to automated buying. "With Programmatic DOOH and DCO, we can deliver outdoor ads far more efficiently at the right place, time, and moment. That means better visibility, attention, and engagement. This study gives us the solid backing and real insights we need. Seeing how dynamic solutions like store locators perform lets us shift from 'using potential' to 'proving real value'," Goesz said.

The reference to dynamic creative optimisation is the operational link. The report describes the store locator as among the most widely adopted uses of DCO in programmatic DOOH, automatically pointing viewers to their nearest retailer, restaurant or dealership. On a printed poster campaign that would require a separate run for every location. On a networked screen bought programmatically, the address can be inserted at serve time based on the screen's coordinates.

Limits of the method

The report is candid about one boundary. Its findings, it says, reflect the specific screen format, creative executions and environments tested; screen size, format and overall execution can all change how prominently store information appears. It asks that the results be read as evidence of what these choices can do, rather than as a universal rule for every DOOH format.

Other limits follow from the design. Forced exposure isolates the creative variable, which is the point, but respondents were shown the image deliberately rather than passing a screen in the street, which likely overstates how many people would register a locator in practice. The outcomes are stated intent. The study reports no matched store visits or sales, which separates it from footfall attribution, where advertising exposure is joined to device-observed visits. Surveys comparing an exposed group against a control are closer in construction to brand lift research, and share its strengths and weaknesses: they show which way a lever moves, not what it returns in revenue.

Sample sizes per cell are not disclosed. With 7,200 respondents spread across three categories and four creative versions, an even split would leave around 600 people per cell, and fewer still in subgroups such as impulse-buy CPG, but the actual allocation, confidence intervals and significance tests are not published. The study covers one screen format and adults up to 59. And it was produced by a company that sells the programmatic screen inventory on which store locators run, together with an agency group that buys it. None of that invalidates the findings, but these are vendor-supplied results and have not been independently audited.

A second Vistar-Omnicom study in four months

The same partners have tested DOOH creative variables before. In May, Vistar Media published its Science in Motion research with Omnicom Media and JCDecaux, finding that 3D motion creative delivered a 67% larger lift in top-of-mind awareness than formats without motion. That study drew on 7,513 respondents in the Netherlands, with fieldwork between November 2025 and January 2026.

The methods differ in a useful way. Science in Motion used incidental exposure: participants watched footage of a person walking past a screen and were not primed to look at the ad. The store locator study used forced exposure with a still image. The first is better suited to estimating whether a format gets noticed at all; the second to isolating what a specific element does once the ad is seen. Together they form the outline of a creative programme covering format, motion and now calls to action, each measured against a control.

Hammink appears in both. In May, she noted that motion is sometimes restricted by local regulation, and that time and budget can rule out complex animation. A store locator faces fewer of those constraints - it is a static text element that can run where animation is not permitted - which may explain part of the commercial interest in quantifying it.

Why this matters for the marketing community

The study arrives as out-of-home is being rebuilt around the buying and measurement plumbing used elsewhere in digital media. Vistar Media, headquartered in New York and operating in more than 35 markets, runs a demand-side platform, a supply-side platform, an ad server, a player, a device management system and traditional OOH planning software. T-Mobile agreed to acquire the company for $600 million in January 2025, and it now sits within T-Mobile Advertising Solutions. The company opened what it described as the first real-time bidding open exchange for out-of-home in April 2022, and in 2024 acquired ADstruc, a planning and buying tool for traditional OOH.

Distribution of its inventory has widened this year. In August, DeepIntent routed Vistar's DOOH and point-of-care inventory into its demand-side platform. In May, the company published a back-to-school DOOH playbook built around audience targeting, venue selection and dynamic creative.

Money is following, if unevenly. US out-of-home spend is forecast to reach $4 billion in 2026, with digital screens projected to grow 14.5% even as that forecast flagged a slowdown for the segment. Earlier analysis on PPC Land put digital out-of-home at 41% of a $52 billion global OOH market in 2025. As more of that spend moves through programmatic pipes, the channel faces the question already asked of display and video: what did it drive?

That is where the store locator study fits. The element it tests is a drive-to-store call to action, and drive-to-store is where measurement vendors have been concentrating. On September 10, Drako began including foot traffic attribution at no extra charge for campaigns using its audiences, a report it said is often sold at around 50 cents per thousand impressions. In June, The Trade Desk plugged Adsquare's location data into Audience Unlimited for planning, targeting and store-visit validation. If location-based measurement becomes a default line item rather than an add-on, the creative variables that move visits can be tested in live campaigns rather than only in panels - and the minus 10% middle-placement result is exactly the kind of finding that live visit data could confirm or overturn.

There is also the question of who produces the evidence. Omnicom's involvement now comes through a much larger group: the holding company completed its $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic on November 26, 2025, and Annalect has since been extending measurement partnerships. Agency-sponsored creative research can shape briefs across a large share of client budgets. A finding that the middle of a portrait screen is a weak, and on one measure negative, position for store information is the kind of rule that can quickly harden into a template default.

Would that be a problem? Not necessarily, provided the rule is treated as a hypothesis for each campaign rather than a law - which is what the report itself asks for. The category results show the effect ranging from a 1% change to more than a doubling depending on placement and product. The reseller-branding finding cuts against simply adding every available piece of store information. And the 116% impulse-buy figure, the number most likely to travel, is also the one with the least methodological detail attached to it.

For screen owners, the consequence is more mundane. Store locators require location-aware creative templates and address data mapped to each screen. Networks that can supply that data cleanly to buyers' creative tools make the format easier to run; those that cannot will find it harder to sell against performance-minded budgets.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Vistar Media, the T-Mobile Advertising Solutions company headquartered in New York, working with Omnicom Media and its analytics division Annalect. Named spokespeople are Martine Hammink and Annelijne Brouwer of Vistar Media, Chris van Kampen of Annalect and Roos Goesz of Omnicom NL.

What: A forced-exposure study, "The store locator effect," testing store information in a 1080 x 1920 portrait DOOH creative at the top, middle and bottom against a no-locator control. Overall, top placement lifted purchase intent 20% but visit intent only 1%; bottom placement lifted visit intent 9% and purchase intent 8%; middle placement lifted purchase intent 7% and lowered visit intent 10%. By category, bottom placement lifted Retail visit intent 35% and QSR 24%, and impulse-buy CPG purchase intent rose 116% with bottom placement and 110% with top. A location pin was associated with a 16% visit intent uplift and high contrast with 10%. Prominent reseller branding sometimes reduced brand recognition.

When: Fieldwork ran from February to April 2026. The announcement and full report were published today, September 23, 2026.

Where: The study covered 7,200 consumers aged 18 to 59, placed in the Netherlands by the announcement. It was issued from Amsterdam.

Why: The research sets out to measure how a single dynamic creative element - store information - changes stated visit and purchase intent in DOOH, as the channel increasingly trades programmatically and faces the same pressure to prove drive-to-store outcomes as other digital media.