Retail Occasions: Easter 2026
Why Shopping Centres Are Perfect for Easter OOH Advertising
A Key Cultural Moment
Easter continues to stand out as one of the most important moments in the UK retail calendar, combining strong consumer participation, elevated seasonal spending and a clear uplift in mall engagement. When retail spend data from Easter 2025 is viewed alongside our Data Jam mall impressions analysis, a consistent picture emerges: Easter is not just a shopping occasion, but a broader leisure and destination-led moment that naturally drives footfall and attention.
More Visits Means more Sales
At the heart of this uplift is the Bank Holiday effect. Malls benefit from a built-in increase in visits during long weekends, delivering around a third more impressions than non-holiday periods. Easter, however, amplifies this further. Data Jam shows that Easter Monday alone generates a 45% uplift in impressions compared with an average Monday across the year, making it one of the strongest single days for mall exposure. Simply put, malls reach more audience footfall at Easter as we seek to enjoy the holiday period.
The Easter Holidays Sustain This
This heightened engagement isn’t limited to one standout day. Throughout the Easter weekend and into the wider holiday period, mall impressions remain consistently elevated. Compared with typical April benchmarks, Good Friday delivers a 4% uplift in impressions, Easter Saturday increases by 3% and Easter Monday rises by 12% versus other Mondays in the month. When viewed across the entire Easter week, impressions are 16% higher than a standard April week, highlighting the sustained impact of school holidays, flexible working patterns and leisure-led behaviour. Impressions peak over the Easter weekend but remain high across the longer holiday window, reinforcing Easter as a multi-day opportunity rather than a single-day spike.
Easter Opens To A Breadth Of Consumers
These impression trends closely mirror what is happening across the wider retail landscape. In 2025, UK consumers are expected to have spent more than £2.3 billion over the Easter period, reinforcing Easter’s position as the most valuable retail moment after Christmas. Much of this spend was concentrated around food and drink, but Easter-themed purchases extended well beyond groceries.
Consumers also spent on gifts, decorations and products linked to hosting and celebrating, reflecting the way Easter has evolved into a more rounded seasonal shopping occasion. This behaviour aligns with emerging commentary around “Eastermas” - a light-hearted term capturing how some households now treat Easter in a similar way to other major seasonal moments, embracing themed gifting, home decorations and celebratory touches beyond traditional Easter staples. While not yet universal, this mindset helps explain why Easter drives broader retail engagement and why malls, in particular, benefit from increased browsing and impulse purchasing during the period.
Part of Easter’s power for retailers lies in the composition of mall audiences. Mall goers are overwhelmingly household decision-makers, controlling what and how their families eat. Data shows that 92% of mall visitors make decisions on what their family eats and 82% are likely to do grocery shopping on the same day as a mall visit. This makes malls an ideal channel not just for seasonal treats, but for everyday FMCG influence. Chocolate, in particular, is a category where malls excel: 66% of mall goers identify chocolate as their preferred snack, 56% purchase it frequently (at least 2–3 times a week) and 91% will buy chocolate while at a mall. The combination of being both decision-makers and active shoppers explains why Easter, with its chocolate-driven gifting and indulgence, drives meaningful sales as well as impressions.
“Eastermas” is a growing trend capturing how some households now treat Easter in a similar way to other major seasonal moments
Malls At Easter Exposes You To A Valuable Audience
Easter’s strength lies not just in what people buy, but in how they choose to spend their time. For many households, it is a family‑focused occasion built around socialising, eating together and enjoying days out. This naturally favours retail destinations that offer more than transactional shopping. Malls benefit from their ability to combine retail with a host of leisure experiences in one place - places to meet friends for coffee, restaurants for lunch or dinner and casual drinking spots for adults. Cinemas showing the latest family‑friendly releases are a regular anchor for longer visits and entertainment spaces often host seasonal activities such as Easter egg hunts, character meet‑and‑greets, craft sessions, interactive installations and other festive family events that turn a trip into a day out. As the weather improves and free time increases, visits become longer and more experience‑led, blending food, entertainment and seasonal activities in ways that keep audiences present for longer and drive higher impression volumes.
Consumer research consistently shows that a large proportion of the UK population participates in Easter in some form, whether through buying seasonal food, gifting Easter eggs, decorating the home, or taking part in activities and outings during the long weekend. This widespread participation helps explain why mall impressions peak not only over the core Easter weekend, but across the wider holiday period as well.
Malls benefit from their ability to combine retail with a host of leisure experiences in one place
2026 Paves The Way For Brands To Benefit
Looking ahead to 2026, the economic backdrop suggests a more cautious consumer, but one that still values seasonal moments. While discretionary spending remains under pressure, easing inflation (estimated 4%) may give households slightly more flexibility for food-led celebrations, small treats and family experiences. Easter is likely to remain resilient because it is rooted in everyday behaviours - grocery shopping, socialising and leisure - rather than purely discretionary luxury spend. For malls and brands, this reinforces Easter’s importance as a dependable moment for reaching audiences at scale.
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