Inspiring everyday athletes: How Intersport drove a +37% lift in store visits through pDOOH

Turning awareness into measurable retail action

Intersport, one of the world’s leading sporting goods retailers, set out to launch “Med sporten i hjertet” (“With sport in the heart”) across Denmark, a new brand concept designed to move the conversation beyond price and product. The aim was to strengthen Intersport’s role as a community-led sports retailer inspiring everyday athletes while also driving measurable visits to physical stores. 

Working with Dentsu Sweden, Vistar Media activated a data-driven programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign across Denmark. The campaign combined precise audience and proximity targeting with premium digital inventory to connect with athletes throughout their daily journeys. 

The challenge: shifting brand perception from transaction to community

Intersport needed to introduce its new brand concept locally, while proving that an emotionally led campaign could also drive measurable retail action.
To achieve this, the campaign focused on three objectives:

• Build awareness: Drive reach across high-traffic urban environments in key Danish cities

• Drive store visits: Use proximity targeting to connect exposed audiences with nearby Intersport stores

• Improve media efficiency: Focus delivery around relevant locations, dayparts and consumer journeys

The strategy: connecting with everyday athletes on the move

Intersport and Dentsu Sweden leveraged Vistar Media’s demand-side platform (DSP) to orchestrate a highly targeted, multi-environment DOOH strategy across major Danish cities, including Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense. The flight ran for two weeks, combining precision location data with contextually relevant inventory.

Audience-centric screen selection
The campaign targeted "Everyday Athletes" by segmenting audiences into active lifestylers, runners, team sport players, and sports fashion consumers. Screens were activated across a strategic mix of venue types to match these consumers' daily habits:

• Retail and malls: Capturing shoppers in highly commercial areas.

• Outdoor billboards and urban panels: Reaching urban commuters and city dwellers on the move.

• Transit and subways: Engaging captive audiences during daily travel.

Inventory was curated across leading Danish DOOH media owners, including Ocean Outdoor Denmark, AFA Decaux, Citrus Media Denmark and Bauer Media Outdoor Denmark, to maximise quality reach across retail, urban and transit environments.

Strategic proximity and urban targeting
To capture high-intent consumers and drive footfall, the campaign utilised point-of-interest (POI) proximity targeting, including DOOH screens within a 500-metre radius of physical Intersport storefronts. This ensured the messaging reached consumers when they were already in a shopping mindset and physically capable of visiting a store.

Relatable, emotional creative strategy
Rather than focusing on hard-sell retail pricing, the creative strategy leaned into emotion, community and relatability. Visually striking 10-second video formats and static creatives showcased diverse, everyday people, such as runners tying their shoes, friends playing street football or people enjoying the social aspect of being active. The prominent placement of the "Med sporten i hjertet" messaging reinforced Intersport’s role as a home for athletic passion.

The results: converting digital inspiration into physical footfall

The campaign converted digital screen exposure into physical store visits across Denmark, proving the efficiency of a unified programmatic DOOH strategy. Over the two-week flight, the campaign generated 4.8 million total impressions. 

A comprehensive foot traffic study conducted in partnership with Spotzi revealed exceptional engagement and conversion metrics:

• Substantial footfall uplift: The campaign achieved a remarkable +37.57% incremental lift in store visits, elevating the visit rate from an 11.46% baseline in the unexposed control group to 15.76% among the exposed audience.

• Optimised reach: Intersport achieved a unique campaign reach of 688,000 individuals with an average contact frequency of 7.07 exposures per person.

• Strategic audience resonance: Traffic was primarily driven by the young adult (ages 20-40) and middle-aged (ages 40-65) segments, while the creative resonated powerfully with "Rising Professionals" (career-focused urban young adults) and "The Affluent Individual" (affluent, independent, child-free consumers), both of which significantly over-indexed in store visit efficiency. 

   

Bridging the gap between brand inspiration and physical retail growth

By shifting the focus from product-heavy promotional advertising to an authentic, emotion-driven community message, Intersport successfully redefined its brand presence in Denmark.

The campaign proves that when premium DOOH is combined with smart proximity geofencing, it does more than just build broad brand awareness. It acts as a direct catalyst for physical retail growth. Through the strategic deployment capabilities of Vistar Media's DSP, Intersport and Dentsu Sweden bridged the gap between digital inspiration and store footfall, generating a +37% lift in store visits compared to the control group, cementing the brand's position at the heart of the local athletic community. 

“The Intersport campaign is a strong example of how programmatic DOOH can move beyond broad awareness and deliver measurable impact for physical retail. Together with Vistar Media, we were able to combine relevant screen environments, proximity targeting and footfall measurement to better understand how the campaign contributed to store visits.”

Lotta Waldemar, Senior OOH Specialist at Dentsu Sweden