During the second segment of a two-part presentation, The Home Depot’s Senior Manager of Media and Business Strategy, Erin Everhart examined how mobile and location data have changed the consumer journey, how location data can be used to amplify other media and how mobile can become a better revenue generating channel.

She began her presentation by defining ‘addiction’ and discussing the four different components that are necessary for something to be labeled as a true addiction, including immersion, modification of your mood, needing more of it and having withdrawals.

She used this information to guide the audience into the core focus of her presentation – society’s addiction to our mobile devices and how these devices have transformed consumer behaviors and the different ways marketers can approach these changes.

Highlighting the many ways consumers utilize their phones to shop, including for price comparisons, product info, customer reviews, looking for stores, she explained how businesses should optimize their mobile destinations based off of such methods.

“The way to win at mobile is not to create new immersive, crazy experiences. It’s to integrate with the experiences that people are already naturally doing on their cell phones,” she said.

For The Home Depot, specifically, that meant localizing to a specific store, highlighting the exact location of a product in-store, and providing purchase and delivery options, as well as payment options.

“Mobile phones have given immediate access to reach our customers, but they’ve also given us an even more powerful weapon at our fingertips: Our consumers location. If we know nothing more about a customer than their location, we’re doing fine.”

Although data is incredibly important for brands, she explained how imperative it is to not overutilize it and drown people with it. She also said it’s reasonable to always expect that your data will conflict with someone else’s. “Work to figure out how you can have one source of truth, one center of excellence that can help manage these conflicting requests,” she said.