"Store Takeovers": Best Buy's 2026 Strategy

It’s About to Change the way we look at marketing in-store

Beginning in 2026, Best Buy is launching “Store Takeover Packages,” a new offering that allows brands to expand their advertising reach with multiple touch points throughout Best Buy stores. These takeovers will include everything from exterior windows to interior displays, interactive screens, aisle fixtures, and even checkout counters.

Physical brick-and-mortar has long been an underused opportunity, which is surprising when you consider the scale and built-in advantages:

• Best Buy operates 1,000+ stores  (source: https://corporate.bestbuy.com/about-best-buy/)

• 30 to 40% of all BestBuy.com purchases are picked up in stores (BOPIS), creating guaranteed foot traffic.

• Average Best Buy store sizes range from 20,000–45,000 sq. ft., representing an enormous amount of physical space that can be monetized.

  
  

Retailers own something brands crave: attention, traffic, and proximity to purchase.

the “Store Takeover”

Best Buy is calling these upcoming opportunities “Store Takeover Packages.”

At the 2025 Best Buy Ads Showcase, Chief Customer, Product and Fulfillment Officer Jason Bonfig stated:

“...for the first time ever we will offer takeover packages that will maximize exposure throughout our stores with premium and highly visible placement opportunities on both the exterior and interior.”  

  Source: https://corporate.bestbuy.com/2025/best-buy-ads-store-footprint/

These takeovers give brands the opportunity to create immersive shopping experiences while also capitalizing on Best Buy’s data collection and analytics. This infrastructure could support personalized in-store content and deliver more meaningful performance data for brands.

In a full retail takeover, brands can activate high-visibility touchpoints across the entire store environment, starting with exterior windows and entry vestibules that set expectations before a shopper even steps inside. Window graphics, branded door clings, and vestibule installations function as large-format billboards, driving awareness and reinforcing campaign messaging at the point of entry.

Once inside, floor graphics guide traffic toward featured products, while aisle displays and end caps create moments of interruption in high-traffic zones. These physical retail displays are proven to increase dwell time and product discovery, as seen in national paint and power tool campaigns where branded aisle disruptions and end caps drove measurable lifts in engagement and sell-through.

The experience continues deeper into the store through checkout counters, interactive kiosks, and digital signage integrated throughout the sales floor. Checkout counter displays capture last-minute consideration, while interactive screens and kiosks support education, product comparison, and lead capture without adding staffing requirements. Brands can also leverage existing display walls, monitors, and in-store screens, allowing for rapid deployment without new hardware installs. This approach has been successfully used in consumer electronics and home improvement retail, where synchronized digital content across display walls and monitors reinforced brand storytelling, improved conversion rates, and maximized the value of existing retail real estate through scalable point-of-purchase display strategies.

This is far beyond a seasonal end cap, a promo fixture, or a branded zone.

It is a full-environment, full-store immersion.

Best Buy Wants Brands NOT Normally Found in the Store

This move makes it clear that Best Buy is thinking well beyond its traditional retail category. The company is no longer just selling space to technology brands competing on specs and price. Instead, it is positioning its stores as high-traffic physical advertising real estate for any brand seeking meaningful, in-person attention.

That shift dramatically broadens the potential advertiser base.

Automotive brands could showcase connected car features or EV charging solutions. Fitness companies could promote wearables, recovery tools, or subscription training platforms. Beauty brands might use Best Buy’s screens and interactive zones to highlight smart skincare devices or at-home treatments. Financial services, insurance, and banking brands gain access to a trusted environment to promote digital tools, apps, or lifestyle products. Healthcare and pet care brands can educate consumers through content and demos. CPG, gaming, and subscription services can leverage the store as a physical extension of their media mix.

In effect, Best Buy is transforming its footprint into a multi-category brand stage, where relevance is driven by audience and context rather than product aisle alone.

If your customers shop at Best Buy, your brand can show up there, even if what you sell isn’t electronics.

Opportunity, Scale, and Creative Freedom

Brands have long used pop-ups, temporary takeovers, and interactive retail experiences to create buzz and engagement. While effective, these activations were often short-lived, limited to a few markets, expensive to produce, and difficult to scale.

Best Buy’s takeover model removes those barriers by turning existing retail space into a media platform. Where every shopper moves through a defined media funnel, allowing digital and physical touchpoints to work together and deliver sequential, full-journey storytelling throughout the store.

This Will Spark a New Era of Experiential Retail

The Best Buy takeover model is not just a new revenue stream. It reflects a broader shift in how retailers are using physical environments as full-scale retail media networks.

As this shift accelerates, retail fixtures are evolving from static merchandising tools into dynamic storytelling platforms. Custom point-of-purchase displays, interactive kiosks, and modular fixture systems are now expected to support immersive brand narratives, not just product placement. We see this in large-scale electronics launches, paint color exploration centers, and in-store tech demos, where brands use integrated lighting, digital screens, and hands-on interaction to guide shoppers through a sequential experience. These environments blend physical retail design with content strategy, turning the store into a curated brand destination.

For brands, this unlocks a wide range of high-impact retail activation opportunities. Pop-up installations, immersive product showcases, launch events, and hands-on demos can now live within existing retail footprints.

The result is a more strategic approach to retail display design, one where physical space, digital media, and experiential marketing work together to drive engagement, consideration, and conversion at the point of purchase.

Is a Best Buy Store Takeover Right for Your Brand?

If you’ve ever wished you could put your brand inside a major retailer without building a full store-within-a-store, this is the moment.

Starting in 2026, Best Buy will give advertisers access to:

• Large physical footprints

• Existing display hardware

• Consistent foot traffic

• Digital storytelling opportunities

• National or regional scale

• Month-long visibility

• Cross-category flexibility

This is more than a media buy. It’s a branded physical experience you can deploy without constructing an entire pop-up from scratch.

The question now is: How would your brand use this new physical advertising real estate?

Would you create an immersive environment?A product demo zone?A multisensory showcase?A limited-time pop-up?A takeover aligned with a new launch?

If you're curious what a month inside a Best Buy could look like for your brand, Benchmarc Display would love to help you imagine it. We’ve spent decades designing immersive, high-impact retail environments, and the Store Takeover era is the perfect playground for creative, memorable, measurable brand experiences.