Scale Your Media. Get Creative. Drive Measurable Sales. Win the Season.
The holiday season doesn't start at checkout. It starts weeks earlier with a list, a recipe search, a coupon clipped in an app, a video watched from the couch. By the time a shopper walks through the door, the decision is already made. The brands that win the holidays are the ones that showed up first, in the right places, with the right message. This playbook shows you how.
THE GROCERY OPPORTUNITY AND THE ALBERTSONS SHOPPER
Food is at the center of most holiday traditions, making grocery one of the most powerful holiday advertising environments. Unlike general retail, grocery shoppers aren't browsing. They arrive with intent: meals to plan, guests to feed, traditions to honor. Holiday preparation shopping missions drive some of the largest baskets of the year, spanning proteins, dairy, beverages, bakery, deli, and seasonal gifting, often all in a single trip.
Albertsons shoppers are true omnichannel planners. They use the app for list-making, recipe-to-cart, coupon stacking, and personalized offers and that digital engagement peaks around the holidays. Over 70% of holiday shoppers use digital coupons or in-app deals, with loyalty members, family segments, and multicultural shoppers leading engagement. These are not passive browsers. They are deliberate, high-value purchasers building meaningful baskets.
Planning starts early. The majority of Albertsons Thanksgiving shoppers and December holiday shoppers begin planning up to four weeks ahead using digital resources to research recipes, hunt for deals, and build lists before they ever set foot in a store. The highest conversion happens when campaigns span offsite, out-of-home, social touchpoints, and in-store activation all reinforcing the same message.
The takeaway: Grocery shoppers plan with purpose. Brands that reach them early, across channels, with consistent and relevant messaging are the ones that end up in the basket.
YOUR HOLIDAY ACTIVATION PLAN
Albertsons Media Collective offers a full-funnel suite of media solutions built to reach shoppers at every stage of the holiday journey — from the couch to the checkout. Here's how each channel fuels holiday inspiration and action and when to deploy it.
CTV: Where the Holiday Season Starts
The holiday shopping journey doesn't begin in the aisle — it starts on the couch. Before shoppers open the app, build a list, or clip a coupon, they're watching. Collective TV puts your brand in that moment: in the living room, on the big screen, in a receptive state of mind. It's one of the earliest and most powerful touchpoints in the holiday funnel.
One dairy brand proved what's possible. In 2024, they ran a strong holiday program across onsite, offsite, and social. In 2025, the brand added CTV as the upper-funnel anchor reaching Albertsons shoppers through premium streaming environments, powered by first-party data, then reinforcing that signal across every downstream channel.
The result: Omnichannel campaign ROAS increased 137% year-over-year and attributed sales grew 185%, while offsite and onsite media far exceeded benchmarks.
Shoppers arrived on the Albertsons app and in-store already primed, having seen the brand on the couch before they ever encountered an ad. CTV didn't just perform. It multiplied their holiday performance.
Timing: Launch CTV in early-to-mid October to build brand familiarity before the demand peaks hit.
The holiday shopping journey happens everywhere — and your brand should too. Digital Out-of-Home puts your message in high-traffic streets and locations with hyper-local relevance: real-time pricing, local promotions, and store information tied to where shoppers actually are. Bold, high-impact creative and bright contrasting visuals make it impossible to ignore.
Offsite Display extends that reach across the sites and content they're already consuming, targeted by real purchase behavior, with engaging formats built to drive attention. High-impact interactive placements prominently feature your key products with dynamic pricing and local store to help bridge inspiration and action, creating a seamless path to purchase.
Social: From Inspiration to Basket
For grocery brands, social is where the holiday list takes shape. According to Meta’s Holiday Shopper study one in three holiday shoppers use Social for inspiration, and 33% purchase in-store after first seeing a product there. The digital-to-physical loop is real, and it closes at Albertsons.
Meta technologies reach 79% of holiday shoppers, making it a powerful environment to engage shoppers mid-planning. Shoppers on Meta find product recommendations and promotions to be the most helpful content, a clear signal to lead with value-driven, offer-forward creative that moves people from scroll to store
Pinterest is the go-to destination for holiday grocery and planning. Planning starts early, with engagement building in September and remaining high through the end of the year. Food & Drink is Pinterest’s #1 holiday category, generating over 39 million food saves in 2025. Pinners are 2x more likely to host holiday gatherings at home, and 76% say Pinterest gives them more confidence in holiday purchase decisions than any other social platform.
Onsite: Where Shoppers Convert
Onsite is the highest-intent environment in retail media. Shoppers are already in the Albertsons app or on the website — searching, browsing, building their cart. Sponsored Products, Display, Homepage Takeovers, and Digital Coupons give brands premium visibility at the exact moment purchase decisions are made.
- Homepage Takeovers own the digital front door on the highest-traffic days of the season. When an Ice Cream brand activated a Homepage Takeover as part of their onsite strategy, the results were immediate: 2.1x higher ROAS than comparable campaigns, and performance 62% above category benchmark.
- Digital Coupons compound that further. When a Nutrition brand paired a $1 Off digital coupon with high-intent onsite placements, the campaign drove 6.4x ROAS, and a conversion rate nearly five times higher than a comparable non-offer campaign — with 60% of purchasers new to the brand. Coupons provide shoppers with a compelling reason to try something new or stock up on a favorite, turning purchase intent into action.
In-store screens meet shoppers at the literal moment of decision — already in the aisle, basket in hand. That proximity is powerful: 62% of shoppers have purchased an item after seeing it advertised on an in-store screen, according to Grocery TV. The loop between digital planning and physical purchase closes right there, in front of the shelf.
What works: helpful beats flashy. Screens that support navigation, pricing, and quality cues get noticed and remembered. Promotional language consistently drives higher engagement, while QR codes bridge the in-store moment to digital coupon redemption. Keep it simple: one message, one product, one purpose.
CREATIVE THAT CONVERTS
Great media without great creative leaves performance on the table. During the holiday season, a few principles matter most: refresh creative every four weeks, lead early with planning and inspiration content such as recipe ideas, hosting tips, and creator-led storytelling. Feature authentic holiday moments, from family traditions to gatherings with friends, to create emotional relevance and strengthen connections with shoppers then shift toward offer-driven, product-forward messaging as key shopping moments approach. As shoppers balance holiday budgets and busy schedules, messaging that highlights value, convenience, and stress-free hosting can be especially effective.
When holiday shoppers are actively searching for recipes, entertaining ideas, and gift inspiration, authentic creator content that delivers genuine value becomes one of the most effective tools in the mix. At Albertsons Media Collective, creator partnerships come with real accountability. Content can be amplified across social channels and tied to closed-loop measurement, giving brands a clear view of how influencer content drive in-store purchases.
Albertsons shoppers are loyalty-driven and deal-aware. Coupon stackability and promotional framing convert. And channel-relevant creative matters: what works on Pinterest differs from what works in-store or on CTV. The Collective offers end-to-end creative support, from turnkey animated product video to full custom production and still photography — so brands can show up with the right creative in every channel without adding to the to-do list.
Timing: Influencer planning starts early: Content must publish ahead of demand peaks — mid-October for Thanksgiving, early November for Christmas.
Best-performing angles: recipes, hosting guides, meal planning, and entertaining how-tos.
LET'S BUILD YOUR HOLIDAY PLAN
The holiday window is short, and Albertsons shoppers are moving fast — across screens, channels, and touchpoints — long before they reach the checkout. Winning the season means showing up across the full funnel: building awareness before the list is written, capturing intent onsite when shoppers are actively searching, reinforcing the message in-store at the moment of decision, and driving trial and loyalty through offers and creator content that travels. The Collective brings all of it together, connected by first-party data, measured against real sales outcomes.
READY TO WIN THE SEASON?
Albertsons Media Collective brings together first-party loyalty data from 51M+ loyalty members, a full-funnel media suite, closed-loop measurement, and end-to-end creative support — everything a brand needs to show up at the right moment and prove it in sales. The grocery advantage is real. The holiday window is short. Let's build your plan.
Holiday planning starts today. Reach out to your Albertsons Media Collective representative to explore holiday packages, creative services, and custom solutions.