Data · 15-week planner
The 10-Week Back-to-School Corridor, Week by Week
One grid, five rows, fifteen weeks. Retail promo events, tax-free windows, regional school start dates, college move-in weeks, and the recommended DOOH flight phase for every cell. Click any cell to jump to the matching package.
Sources: NRF, Deloitte, Vistar Media 2026 buyer report, Think with Google, Avalara. School-start dates reflect the largest districts in each region.
Spend pacing 2026
Only 48% of planned BTS spend happens by the end of July — down from 61% in 2025. 31% of the season lands in the first two weeks of August, at ~$173 per child (Deloitte 2026). Budget in two waves, not one: an awareness/deal-sync flight in July, then a compressed peak-crunch flight Aug 1–15. Treat September as a real third wave for enrollment and Friday-night sports.
Scroll horizontally to see weeks 6–15. Every cell links to the matching package section on /packages.
Regional detail
School start is not one date
"When does school start" is one of the top back-to-school queries on Google, and roughly 70% of those searches come from mobile (Think with Google). Parents want confirmation for a specific district — and the district-level calendar spread runs almost four weeks.
Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte
Phoenix, Denver, LA Unified, Seattle, Minneapolis
DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia suburbs, Richmond
NYC, Boston, Chicago, Newark (post-Labor Day)
Recommended flight structure
Five DOOH phases, two real waves
Category and brand recall for the 41–67% of parents already shopping (NRF/Google). Highway boards, mall panels, EV chargers. Steady daily impressions.
Prime Day, Walmart Deals, Target Circle Week. Grocery, gas-station TV, big-box parking-lot panels. Creative referencing the retailer where relevant.
Tax-free windows across 17 states + $173/child spend surge. Supply Run + Tax-Free Blitz packages. Concentrate impressions to weekends and evening dayparts.
College move-in corridors in top 100 markets; K-12 carpool dayparting on school-adjacent panels 7–9am and 2–4pm.
Restock cycles, Friday Night Lights sports flights, teacher appreciation, and enrollment marketing for schools chasing September deposit deadlines.
Turn the calendar into a media plan
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