Back to School: How OOH Advertisers can prepare for the upcoming school year

The 2021 back-to-school shopping season came with many challenges for both families and the marketers that wanted to reach them. This year, however, parents are anticipating a different type of threat, inflation.

2021 Back-to-School Shopping Insights: Family Plans & Trends

To help brands stay ahead of the evolving conditions, we surveyed more than 200 families with children in school to find out their plans for this year’s back-to-school shopping season.

Amid heightened expectations from consumers on quality and value, we wanted to find out how consumers will be feeling heading into this back-to-school season and share some insights into how your brand can strategize for the shopping season ahead.

Most anticipate back-to-school shopping to take place in July (34%), followed by August (29%), with a number already having started to get organised (June 27%).

Our research also confirms that despite inflation, consumers are planning to spend in preparation for the upcoming school year, with most families (37%) estimating a spend of between 200-400, followed by 28% spending between 400-750 and a small number (18%) estimating a spend of +750.

Consumers will be shopping across several stores, with Tesco being the most popular (65%), followed by Dunnes Stores (60%). 52% of respondents will be keeping it local, by spending in school supply stores within their local area.

40% of back-to-school shoppers will be shopping across high-street, shopping centres and local stores. 27% will be using a mix of in-store and online. Only 4% of consumers will be doing all their back-to-school shopping online, this shows that there is a growing comfort with a return to in-store shopping.

With the back-to-school shopping season already begun, what can advertisers and brands do to make the most out of this time of year? Based on our findings, see below a few points to consider:

1. Local communities are still vitally important. Even though we are finally at the point of a post-pandemic new normal that doesn’t mean local communities should be forgotten when planning your campaigns. Many consumers now, more than ever are making a more conscious effort to shop local therefore it’s important to still include these areas in your plans to reach audiences right along the path to purchase.

2. Despite Inflation, spending power is still prevalent for back-to-school shoppers. Our findings suggest that this will be a very competitive back-to-school shopping season with many consumers shopping across multiple stores. July is set to be the most popular month although of those who participate in back-to-school shopping, many have started to make purchases already.

3. Brick and mortar is still an area of focus. Even though consumers are beginning to shop more online, back-to-school shopping is likely to be done in person. Advertisers and brands should still be focusing their campaigns on driving footfall to stores, you can do this via campaigns that include directional messaging to the nearest location or prompt shoppers by displaying quieter times to visit.

All of the above findings point to the optimism consumers have heading into the 2022-2023 school year.

Methodology: Bounce Insights conducted the online survey of a main urban sample of 200 respondents between the ages of 18-54 with children of school age, either primary, secondary or both. The research was conducted on the 24th & 25th of May 2022.

If you found this blog interesting and are looking for more information, please reach out to a member of your client service team.