We have reported on a few examples of co-branded campaigns in the last few months. The focus being how brands can leverage from one another – whether that be through use of platforms such as KitKat pairing with YouTube to deliver exclusive video content, or brands helping each other reach audiences based on a link in their offerings. The latest joint campaign to hit the high-street is from Subway Restaurants and Disney/Pixar. The two companies have joined up to provide a new kids application, providing exclusive mobile content to families whilst in-store.

Major League Baseball is bringing season ticketing to the next-generation fan with a new feature in its mobile application enabling the purchase of blocks of games or season tickets and promising a more flexible experience. The MLB is altering fundamentals of a long unchanged sector of sporting events, season ticketing and adjusting its operation of bulk ticketing to better appeal to millennials. The league is introducing its Experience’s Pass into its MLB.com Ballpark app, and allowing for a more flexible baseball season for fans.

Looking to tap into the country’s skyrocketing number of mobile device users, e-commerce players are increasingly focusing on mobile applications to boost customer numbers and loyalty. Zalora, Lazada and Elevenia are among e-commerce businesses putting their trust in mobile apps to exploit Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce market. Zalora Indonesia’s head of marketing, Jo Bjordal, said that in light of the large proportion of Indonesians who accessed the Internet through smartphones, his firm would encourage existing and potential customers to use the brand’s mobile app. “Hopefully, by the end of this year, we’ll reach 70 to 80 percent of all transactions coming from the …

Campari America is joining forces with mobile rewards platform Kiip to offer consumers credit for ridesharing application Lyft during peak drinking hours. The campaign, which was created to shine a light on corporate social responsibility and promote responsible safety habits, sees Kiip leverage real-time data to locate mobile users and determine when those over the age of 21 are most likely to indulge in a few drinks. When a consumer is on a Kiip-enabled app during these prime times, he or she may receive a sponsored reward from Campari to use toward the trip home.

Last year, when Alibaba first began making noises about going public, retailers began to worry that the kind of price and service competition that Amazon sparked two decades ago was going to happen all over again. The Chinese retail giant’s IPO in September turned out to be the biggest in the history of the New York Stock Exchange, blowing away even the generally high expectations of many observers and garnering the company some $22 billion to play with and invest.  The company has indeed invested in several companies in the U.S., including riding-hailing app Lyft, Snapchat, Tango, and other tech startups, as well as retailer …

Between 2014 and 2015, Asia experienced double digit growth within its mobile app economy with sessions growing 77 per cent, according to a report by Flurry Analytics, which describes the continent as “the lynchpin of the mobile revolution… designing and manufacturing devices and publishing some of the world’s most popular apps”. The growth is being driven by consumer categories, particularly shopping & lifestyle, which saw 278 per cent year-over-year growth in sessions in Asia, news & reading (134 per cent) and utilities and productivity (89 per cent), reflective of the region’s “growing purchasing power and sophistication."

The fruit of Apple's 2013 acquisition of indoor mapper WiFiSlam seems to have fallen from the tree and landed at the patent office, with Cupertino filing for a find-my-friends feature. Back when the acquisition happened it was speculated that Apple wanted to get into the follow-my-footsteps business that mobe companies have tagged as an official Next Big Thing in advertising for more than a decade. Figuring, perhaps, that people like to see some utility in exchange for getting price offers from the store they just left, Apple's patent envisages using indoor location services to let friends find each other.

Mobile payments are set to explode over the next few years and while tech companies might be excited by the profits to come, there is a another group of people also looking forward to the technology – restaurant waiting staff. Restaurants and mobile payments companies told CNBC they have seen a boost in customers tipping when using apps on their smartphones to pay for meals. La Patagonia, a rustic Argentinian restaurant in the middle of London reported a 4 percent rise in tips since it first started using Zapper – a South African-based mobile payments app. Zapper allows people to scan a …

For years, rumours of Amazon’s intent to establish a physical presence on high streets have circulated, but now the shopping giant has given the phrase mobile commerce a new spin with a ‘Treasure Truck packed full of reduced items. Amazon announced that it will tour Seattle neighbourhoods to offer consumers deals on their doorsteps in an interesting pilot from the firm. Using the mobile app, consumers can pick certain reduced items from the van and arrange a pick-up at one of its many stops. The pilot is one of the ways the retailer is looking to bridge the gap between …

Users of American Eagle Outfitters’ application are getting first crack at trying a new service enabling items to be reserved online and then tried on in-store, reflecting the growth in mobile-enabled omnichannel shopping experiences. With the retailer’s app experiencing triple-digit growth, higher return visits and higher bag size, giving users first look at the new Reserve, Try & Buy service helps keep them excited about coming back. The omnichannel service is currently available at American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie stores in 13 cities and is expected to be in all stores by the end of the year.