KEY LARGO, FL – One of the greatest challenges confronting the ad industry over the past several decades has been media fragmentation, but most agencies and advertisers typically think of it in terms of how it affects consumers – and their ability to reach them. On Thursday, during MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit here a highly regarded researcher and analyst presented data indicating it has had a profound impact on the number of media options advertisers and agencies must also now choose from. “In the 1970s, there were eight choices,” Patrick Quinn, founder and CEO of PQ Media, said during a presentation of a new study on mobile and social media at the summit. He was referring to the number of media platforms that advertisers and agencies had to research, plan, buy and analyze the effects of when mounting a campaign to reach consumers with advertising. “Today there are more than 100, and 17 from mobile alone,” he added. Quinn said that fragmentation of options, and the problems it has caused in manpower, workflow, thinking and comparing media options, is the No. challenge cited by PQ Media’s panel of industry leaders that it surveys periodically. Among other things, he noted, many of those platforms have entirely different ways of thinking about and estimating how consumers are exposed to their medium. To illustrate how vexing, and sometimes emotional, the problem can be, Quinn said he had “just left an angry guy” at New York’s LaGuardia Airport who unleashed his frustration about media fragmentation on him, before departing to come to the summit here. “Which are right for you,” Quinn asked Summit attendees of the 100-plus media options they must now consider. Among other things, the fragmentation and inconsistency among those platforms is creating challenging issues such as “incompatibility” in their measurement systems and metrics, coverage issues, and user experience and ad effectiveness issues. Even within a given platform that marketers and agencies may think of as a single medium -- say mobile, as an example -- Quinn noted that there are now “44 different revenue streams” for the various sub-components – carriers, networks, publishers, exchanges, app developers, etc. – that make up the mobile media industry today.
Global mobile entertainment revenues will grow by one-third in four years. Vancouver-based IE Market Research Corp. expects mobile entertainment revenues to climb to $53.9 billion by 2016 from $39.6 billion in 2011, which is a compounded annual yearly growth rate of 6.3%. Looking at specific areas, the survey says global music revenues will be a particularly fast-moving category -- doubling in four years from $9 billion in 2011 to $18 billion in 2016. It forecasts that India will be a rising market -- with total revenue in mobile entertainment almost tripling, rising to $1.79 billion in 2016 from $670 million in 2011. That represents a compounded annual growth rate of 18.2% for those four years. Some months ago, the group said that U.S. mobile operators were about six months to a year ahead of their Western European counterparts when it comes to the launch of faster 4G networks. The research covers more than 50 countries and interviews with approximately 50,000 consumers globally. Back in February, the group forecast similar results -- that the mobile entertainment business would hit $52 billion by 2015. At the same time, the survey forecast that global mobile TV revenues would rise to $6.6 billion in 2015, up from $2.52 billion in 2009.
As a pioneer in the mobile media space, ESPN has long seen the value of reaching fans on-the-go with sports scores, video highlights and specialized apps to feed their passion. But rather than view mobile as the oft-described “third screen,” the sports media powerhouse refers to it as the “first screen,” according to Michael Bayle, VP and general manager of ESPN Mobile. In a keynote talk Thursday at MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit, Bayle explained that instead of determining how to shoehorn its programming from traditional media to mobile platforms, the process is now reversed, with mobile becoming the starting point. “What’s taking preference now is to try to get as ubiquitous as possible. Program and design from the mobile standpoint first, then extrapolate what could be applied for the PC, television and print experience,” he said. Driving that heightened emphasis on mobile is that it represents ESPN’s fastest-growing audience. Bayle pointed out that its mobile audience across its mobile properties has surpassed 20 million, with users spending 45% more time with ESPN mobile content in 2011 than the prior year. ESPN Mobile now ranks as the company’s fourth-largest network and it has 150,000 people plugged into its mobile offerings at any given time. “Particularly from an international standpoint, [mobile] is the primary way we reach an audience,” said Bayle, adding that ESPN Mobile has grown into a full-service content and commerce provider. But more isn’t always necessarily better. One of Bayle’s initiatives since joining ESPN last fall has been to reduce its focus to a handful of apps from the scores of titles released in recent years. That means the strongest focus on apps would be dedicated to Sports Center, collegiate sports, sports fantasy leagues, ESPN the Magazine and international sports like soccer and cricket. He noted that apps overall still account for the vast majority of the company’s mobile usage, although the embrace of HTML5 programming should swing the balance back in favor of the mobile Web in the coming years. ESPN’s mobile strategy is seen in terms of “bridges,” connecting people to its broader digital offerings, TV and mobile commerce. Mobile is the gateway to other screens and media formats. It also embraces social properties, like Twitter and Facebook, to distribute content more widely and allow fans to connect around live sporting events and hometown teams. When it comes to TV, part of the goal is to capitalize on two-screen viewing and the gradual shift toward interactive television. As an example, Bayle pointed to a new partnership the network unveiled today with Shazam that allows Winter X Games viewers on ESPN to use the Shazam smartphone app to access video highlights, photos and even music from the event. Conversely, ESPN also wants to leverage mobile to encourage television viewing through news updates and alerts about live events that might prompt people to reach for the remote. In the same vein, ESPN increasingly wants to infuse mobile content with transactional opportunities. Through a deal with StubHub, it allows fans to buy event tickets as they’re browsing upcoming schedules or information about their teams. It’s all about encouraging an impulse buy while people have mobile phones in hand, says Bayle. He sees m-commerce, in fact, as potentially the biggest draw for marketers. Bayle says it's "the catalyst that finally breaks through the 'why do I invest in mobile,' which many agencies are scratching their heads about." Given its focus on cross-platform programming, ESPN also takes an integrated approach on the ad side. Sponsorships are typically sold across digital, print, television, mobile. For an advertiser that can't afford a TV buy, Bayle says, mobile may be a way to reach ESPN’s male-skewing audience at lower cost.
Coca- Cola’s flagship brand will air two animated spots featuring its iconic polar bear mascots for the first time during the Super Bowl -- plus another post-game spot on ESPN. But that’s the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The big news is that the bears will be reacting to the game’s events (and the commercials) in real time via a live-stream running throughout the game, and simultaneously interacting with game- watchers on Facebook and Twitter. Coke marketing executives laid out the multifaceted integrated marketing strategy for the game in a press preview today. The core driver of the campaign’s strategy -- from Coke’s lead agency Wieden + Kennedy Portland, with support from digital agency 360i and other partners – is to capitalize on the “second-screen” phenomenon in order to “be everywhere that consumers are” and dominate the social media conversation. About 60% of the 100 million+ people watching the Super Bowl are expected to be online interacting with others, using their computers or mobile phones or devices. The creative concept: Two animated polar bears are watching the game together from the arctic. One is rooting for the New York Giants and the other for the New England Patriots, with each wearing a scarf bearing the colors of its chosen team. The bears’ live-stream reactions will be running throughout the game on CokePolarBowl.com, a microsite hosted on the campaign’s Facebook page. The live-stream will also be viewable on Twitter, ESPN.com and other favorite sports-enthusiast sites (paid placements integrated in windows on the sites, to let fans experience Coke’s stream without interfering with their viewing of the sites’ main content). Throughout the Coke live-stream, users will be able to share continuously generated video clips from the bears’ activities through Facebook or Twitter, to convey their emotions in multimedia format to their fellow team supporters or friendly foes. Wieden + Kennedy will be creating many of the bears’ live- stream responses (there are no audio bear “voices,” just animated physical responses) in real-time, in reaction to the game action and commercials. But many bear responses have been prepared in advance -- for example, one or another of the bears performing a victory dance or holding his head in his hands in response to his team’s triumphs or setbacks during the game, or covering the eyes of a cub if a racy commercial or Janet Jackson-like half-time moment occurs. At the same time, the campaign’s teams will be posting comments and responding to fans’ posts for the bears on the campaign’s Facebook and Twitter presences. The bears’ social posts will also encourage users to upload photos to be incorporated into Coke’s live-stream. More on the other components of the campaign:
Consumer avoidance is as important to automobile manufacturers and marketers as loyalty. If you can figure out why people are running away, you can figure out how to get them back, right? Yes -- especially if avoidance is being fueled by left-brain parameters like experience of ownership, reviews, ratings, features, price and the like. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people are running away for a reason that, because it is so insidious, strikes terror in the hearts of auto marketers everywhere: consumer perception based on "conventional wisdom" about vehicle quality and durability. Forty percent of new- vehicle buyers who avoided a particular model due to quality or reliability concerns say they based their opinions on common knowledge rather than personal experience, reviews, ratings or recommendations, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Avoider Study. The study is based on responses from approximately 24,045 owners who registered a new vehicle in May last year. Among buyers who avoid a particular model because of perceived quality and reliability, 43% say their avoidance was because “the brand’s vehicles, in general, are known to have poor quality/reliability.” Thirty-eight percent based their avoidance on ratings and reviews, while only 14% said they based their decision on prior ownership of the model. Jon Osborn, research director at J.D. Power and Associates, argues that if you are an automaker who had a quality problem in the past (that created a generation of naysayers). you can't just let your cars do the talking now. “For some brands, namely those that have created marked improvements in their quality and reliability in recent years, it’s even more vital to tell their improvement story, rather than just waiting for perceptions to change over time,” he said, in a statement. In good news for domestics, the percentage of buyers who avoided import models because of their origin has increased to 14% —the highest level since the inception of the study in 2003 -- while the percentage of buyers who avoided domestic models due to their origin has declined to 6%, a historical low. “The decline in avoidance of U.S. models due to their origin reflects a buy-American sentiment that surfaced as the economic recession led to domestic job losses and adversely affected major U.S. institutions such as the Detroit Big Three,” said Osborn. “In addition, the quality, dependability and appeal of domestic models have improved during the past several years, as well, and this may also be a cause for declining avoidance.” While perception about quality and reliability is driving avoidance, it is no longer the main driver of purchase. Gas mileage has leapfrogged reliability, the deal and exterior styling, which were the most influential purchase reasons in 2010, the 12-month period covered by the firm's last Avoider study. While gas mileage and environmental impact certainly are the big drivers for Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and Toyota Prius, consideration is is not uniform across the nameplates. Image is a prominent reason for purchase of Volt, while buyers cite low maintenance costs for the Leaf and reliability for the Prius, per J.D. Power. Among buyers who avoided the Volt, purchase price was the most- cited reason, while the most prominent avoidance reason for the Leaf and Prius is exterior styling. For the Volt and Leaf, a notable proportion of buyers cited the models’ small size as an avoidance reason. For the Prius, performance is a prominent reason for avoidance.
Although largely over the ‘V’ word, marketers still love to see their work spread organically online. Which brands are best at getting people to share their messages? Well, despite consumer clamoring for the iPhone 5, Apple’s introduction of the 4S was the most-watched video spot during the fourth quarter of 2011. Overall, the campaign was streamed more than 35.8 million times -- becoming the brand’s most-viewed ad of all time after only three weeks, according to new research from social video analytics firm Visible Measures. Apple’s campaign was heavily driven by audiences, with more than 450 copies and derivatives that generated over 50% of the views for the entire campaign. After Apple, Google remains the second-most-watched brand for the third quarter in a row. Up more than 10 million views during the quarter, the search giant has launched ten new campaigns since October. Google’s Chrome campaign "The Web Is What You Make Of It" continues to drive viewership for the brand, but the newly launched campaigns "Chromebook," showcasing the new Web-only laptop, and "Zeitgeist," the spot highlighting the events of 2011, also helped garner views. With more than 10 active campaigns and over 21.4 million views, Lenovo was the third-most-watched brand of the quarter. Promoting a global contest among students to have their scientific experiments performed at the International Space Station, YouTube and Lenovo’s co-branded effort "Spacelab: What Will You Do?" was also a hit with over 18.8 million views. Overall, consumers watched online video ads over 745 million times during the fourth quarter -- more than a 25% increase since the third quarter, and more than a 35% increase year-over-year. Yet unlike TV networks, marketers can’t draw a clear line between viewership and success. Illustrating this point, failed Republican primary candidate Rick Perry had the most-shared campaign video of the quarter. Released a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses -- and containing his controversial views on religion and gays in the military -- Perry’s "Strong" spot was watched over 15.8 million times. In another example of notoriety, Megaupload’s "Megaupload Song" attracted more than 14.3 million views in less than a month, thanks to a star-studded cast and a healthy dose of controversy. The music video features celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and Will.i.am declaring their love for the Internet storage brand. As Visible Measures reminds us, the controversy exploded in early January when Megaupload was shut down when the Department of Justice indicted a number of its executives, calling it “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States.” Also of note, apparel and accessories topped all verticals during the quarter with more than 83.7 million views -- yet down slightly quarter-over-quarter.
Lifestyle publishers build sponsored online city-guides all the time. Playing with the formula, Thrillist has partnered with its fairer equivalent DailyCandy to launch a Kahlua- sponsored dining directory. Neither publisher, however, is taking credit for the idea. Rather, Vizeum -- on behalf of Pernod Ricard’s Kahlua brand -- approached Thrillist and DailyCandy separately, according to Jody Rones, director of advertising at Thrillist. “They were looking to build a campaign focused around brunch that reached both men and women, but that spoke to each directly,” said Rones. The result was “Brunch With Us” -- a microsite edited by both publishers to provide male and female visitors with fitting food recommendations. Scheduled to run through the summer, the mobile-friendly site features a tool for users to filter eateries by unique preferences, including “hangover cure,” “good for groups,” “alfresco” and “great for out-of- towners.” “For our guys, we knew that with football season drawing to a close, weekends tend to be sort of vacant. So we came up with the idea for a site that would provide brunch and post-brunch activity recommendations,” Rones explained. “Out of that, 'Brunch With Us' was born.” Site visitors also receive suggested post-brunch itineraries, featuring a list of editor-approved hangout spots and shops. To promote it, both Thrillist and DailyCandy have created campaigns on their respective Web properties. “It was a one-off partnership around this specific campaign," Rones said. "But based on the success of this program, we’re open to exploring other opportunities.” How will Rones measure success? “We’re going to be looking at site traffic and overall engagement,” he said. “I also believe if this saves one couple from an argument on where to go to brunch, this program was a success.” In mid-2008, Comcast acquired DailyCandy for $125 million. Following Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal last year, DailyCandy became part of NBCU's Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media division. Thrillist remains an independent company, with some of the same investors as DailyCandy, including former AOL COO Bob Pittman.
In its updated mobile ad forecast released Wednesday, eMarketer ranked Millennial Media third behind only Google and Apple, with a 17.7% share of ad dollars last year. Aiming to gain more ground on its rivals, the mobile ad network has rolled out a new service allowing brands to retarget people who previously downloaded their apps. Millennial will serve mobile display ads in other apps or on the mobile Web. They are designed to drive users back to specific parts of an app. For example, an airline with a branded app could run an ad sending people to the place where they book a flight or a special “deals” page that showed all the current last-minute offers. It might also highlight the app’s section with information on various destinations. The Millennial announcement promises this deep-linking process will boost usage, but the company did not provide any data showing results from retargeting. It did say the program would provide advertisers with the ability to track in-app transactions -- assuming people click on the ads to get reacquainted with an app. Jamie Fellows, SVP of product at Millennial, said just launching an app, even for a well-known brand, isn’t enough. “Brands need to make sure the experience is good; they need to make sure users are finding the app, and perhaps most importantly, they need to take steps to drive sustained consumer usage," he said. Mobile app analytics and ad firm Flurry introduced a similar tool for developers last October called AppCircle Re-Engagement. The idea is to lure back users by reminding them of what they’re missing -- even when they are in other apps. At the time, Flurry said more than two-thirds of newly acquired app users disappear within two months. As it prepares for its planned IPO, Millennial can use new revenue streams. In its IPO filing to raise up to $75 million, the company reported $69.1 million in sales for the first nine months of 2011, but is not yet profitable.
Kicking of the Thursday sessiosn is keynoter Michael Bayle, SVP and GM, ESPN Mobile, who joined the sports media giant last fall. He says focus is on delivering programming anytime, anywhere. Mobile becomes the first screen. In terms of usage, he audience for ESPN Mobile has reached over 20 million. Fans are spending 45% more time, year over year—at any one time 150,000 people are using ESPN Mobile. It’s now ESPN’s fourth largest network. When it comes to platforms, Android is surging, but the sports network works across all smartphone operating systems. And, of course, it has scores of apps. ESPN has seen 5X growth in apps as mobile Web.
What’s unique about mobile? It’s a live experience. ESPN tries to capitalize on that by offering a surround experience across screens and through social properties like Twitter that let people interact. It also has a program set up for asking fans for feedback about their mobile experience with ESPN to help guide future development. Part of that will be to build up the network’s m-commerce offerings. In that vein, its added the opportunity for fans to buy tickets in partnership with StubHub as they’re browsing other content. It’s all about encouraging an impulse buy via mobile, says Bayle. He also emphasizes there has to be a bridge with TV programming. He notes Winter X Games starting now are first live games to be “Shazam” enabled—allowing people to tag content they see, like music, photo galleries, and schedules, through the ESPN app.
MediaPost’s Mobile Summit in Key Largo opened with some news this morning. During ESPN Mobile General Manager Michael Bayle’s opening keynote, he announced that ESPN has partnered with mobile app monger Shazam to televise the first live sports broadcast ever enabled by Shazam. The event, he said, was the Winter Games from Aspen, which begin at 6 pm (EST) tonight, and Bayle said people using Shazam’s apps will be able to download other multimedia content related to the event, including music, pictures, video highlights from last year’s games, etc.
With “hundreds” of sources for mobile and social data out there, “why do we even bother to publish,” PQ Media Founder and Chief Patrick Quinn humbly said this morning, while setting up his presentation on his company’s new “Mobile & Social” media marketplace analysis. The reason, he told attendees at MediaPost’s Mobile Summit in Key Largo, is that PQ’s global leader panel and its paying customers both said there is no definitive source that defines the “size and structure to analyze this whole mobile social ecosystem. Indeed, the report, which took more than a year to produce, lists “44 revenue streams,” according to Quinn.
In the first panel of the day, agency executives tossed around ideas about how they view mobile as part of the digital ecosystem. Without getting too philosophical about the meaning of mobile, discussion started started with a focus on using the medium to capture particular moments in a consumer’s life. Mogreet exec Scott Rogers, for instance, highlighted the mobile marketing firm’s new moShare button for sites and apps that lets people share content directly to friends’ mobile phones as they would via a Facebook or Twitter button. Digitas’ Chia Chen offered it’s about trying things in mobile to see what works. “We say iteration is the new perfect,” he said. KD+E’s said the firm tries to develop use cases via working with direct feedback from mobile users as well as tools like Google analyts to pick up on what browsers or devices people are on. Calynn Krieger of AKQA agreed that updating apps on the fly based on how people are using them is part of an ongoing development process, a constant evolution.
How is TV and traditional media ported to mobile? Adapting content from other media doesn’t seem to be a key for the assembled agency execs. Digitas Chia Chen stresses the importance of developing for the medium rather than repurposing a 30-second spot or other content. With Buick, he noted new car catalogs all have QR codes. Video was shot specifically for that experience, rather than TV. If people snap QR code and have non-mobile friendly content, it’s a waste. He goes back to the key of providing triggers via mobile that capitalize on things people are doing as they go through their day, wherever they are. That could mean anything from an app geared to pregnant women as they prepare to give birth to mobile offers from a quick-serve restaurant or mobile alerts from nearby stores.
While media companies and brands should create content and services geared specifically to mobile, the panelists also agreed that mobile has a key part to play with the rise of 2-screen viewing in the livingroom to enhance what people are watching on TV. Chen said Digitas clients see &ldquo ;multi-sreen” viewing as a huge opportunity for cross-platform marketing through mobile tools and apps like Shazam, Yahoo’s IntoNow and social entertainment service GetGlue. Similarly, AKQA’s Krieger noted the agency had created an app for Heineken that lets users watching Champions League games (typically alone) to connect with friends and predict what will happen in games as they’re played.
At this week’s Mobile Insider Summit in Key Largo, Fla., ESPN SVP of Mobile Michael Bayles laid on us a striking stat from a brand that is as mobilized as any I can name. He said the company is seeing growth in apps at five times the rate of growth of its massively popular Web site. Many of us in mobile media heard throughout 2011 that the mobile Web was ascendant after years of focus on apps. Bayle tells us that among its leading edge users, the move to apps is on. Whether this applies across content and brand categories is an open question, but apps are a critical piece of the media mix now, and it is time we started treating their privacy policies with some seriousness. The Mobile Marketing Association this week issued guidelines for app designers crafting privacy policies. This is sorely needed, but it only begins to address the larger issue of managing privacy issues on mobile. The first part of this project is doing what the MMA has done: offer a set of templates for designers that they can adapt to their own content category, recommending It recommends a way to speak to the user and which critical aspects of data collection need to be addressed. Of particular importance on mobile is the distinction between automatically collected information (data collected without user input) and data provided by the user via form filling and registration. On mobile the critical component for many people will be location information. While mobile phones communicate back to publishers the same sort of data a browser does (operating system, browser type) they also can communicate the device’s unique ID as well as real time location information. I would love to see more research done on the levels of sensitivity consumer have to different kinds of data collection, but I suspect that real-time and highly precise location information would prove to be among the most sensitive. The MMA takes care in singling this data point out and advising publishers to spell out what kinds of location information is collected and how. They also advise specificity in how the data is used. Many of the major mobile publishers have started including privacy policies in their apps of one sort or another. And this was not always the case even six months ago. For many media companies and brands, privacy policies seemed to be at best an afterthought. Nevertheless, the key challenge before everyone now is making the privacy policy relevant and usable by the mobile customer. For instance, ESPN’s own flagship app is ScoreCenter, which lets you customize sports reporting to your own teams and even sends you alerts about game starts and results. That is an awful lot of personalization, which is great from the standpoint of mobile utility. But for any curious or wary mobile user, this personalization raises some specific questions about data use. And yet if you do find the privacy policy in the app, it kicks you over to an embedded browser and full site version of the Disney generic privacy policy. That likely covers Disney’s butt well enough, but it doesn’t do what the rest of the app does so well -- recognize that mobile is a discrete platform that requires different formats and raises unique privacy issues. Let’s look at another leading mobile app, Weather Channel. Its privacy policy is formatted for mobile, but not written for mobile. It scrolls on endlessly and speaks mainly about Weather.com. Huh? Even the privacy policies that do appear in apps actually don’t seem to apply to apps or mobile specifically? Oh, yes. It gets worse. Try Amazon’s very popular mobile app. This app makes you drill down into “Legal” information before you get to a privacy policy. Once there, you find that not only is it another generic Amazon.com policy but was last updated in September 2008. How about one of my favorite shopping apps from Best Buy? Man, there is a lot of language about terms and conditions, but no privacy policy at all that I could find. Gee, I am starting to wonder if anyone is getting close. Much to my surprise, one of the most mobile-friendly privacy approaches I see on my smartphone deck comes from one of the most controversial companies in terms of privacy: Facebook. While far from perfect, the Facebook app for iOS gives you both general posting advice and controls but also links to all of the apps already on your deck that are using Facebook Connect. The screens reiterate what information you are sharing with the third parties, and lets you remove the link or adjust the sharing pieces that are not required. While I still find Facebook’s various privacy definitions and distinctions a bit inscrutable, the basic format and level of context-awareness is welcome. Apps raise the privacy issue for a range of content providers that may not have considered it before. Book publishers didn’t need a privacy policy in their titles. But once a book become interactive, there is the ability for usage tracking. What does the game publisher or children’s book-app maker do about COPPA compliance? Privacy policies in apps need to be present in all apps, whether from a publisher running advertising or a brand delivering store locators. The policies need to be as brief and clear as legally permissible. But they also need to be as contextually aware as the apps themselves. My guess is that the mobile user is more concerned about some mobile capabilities like location tracking. These are concerns that need to be addressed by something other than a reiteration of a generic Web site policy.
Patrick Quinn, CEO of research firm PQ Media, took the podium at the Mobile Insider Summit this week to offer a preview of the firm’s upcoming U.S. Mobile & Social Media forecast. He noted that to date, no one source has sized, structured and analyzed the entire mobile, social ecosystem. The study looks at 3 broad sectors, 7 segments and 44 revenue streams. -Total mobile and social spending rose 30% to $45 billion in 2011, and rose at a rate of 28.7% from 2006 to 2011. -Mobile content and access is the largest market, accounting for 85% of annual. Mobile advertising and marketing is growing faster, up 54% last year. -Overall mobile media hit $1B in revenu faster than any communication industry to date.
Sapient's Dan Israel says retailers are grappling with living in the era of radical price transparency because of the ease of making price comparisons via mobile. "Retailers no longer have the home field advantage in their own stores," he said. That means they have to try to engage customers on an ongoing basis, before during and after they leave the store. In that vein, Ashley Harmeling of retailer Rue La La says the company tries to keep customers engaged with its app whlle in the store waiting online, or any where else they might need to kill time. But israel added retailers have to go beyond just offering discounts to try to engage customers and look for more creative mobile offerings to hold attention and drive business.