In an Ever-Changing Digital World, Marketers Find Stability Tracking Mobile Trends

Not all that long ago, if you pictured a commuter on a train platform, they would likely be reading a newspaper or sipping coffee. Flash forward to now and the same commuter might be planning a party, test driving a car or fighting for survival in a zombie apocalypse--all from their mobile device. Thanks to smartphones, consumers are carving out new and sometimes surprising behavior patterns. Marketing strategies have historically relied on some very basic assumptions of consumer behavior. For example, a person in a car will most likely be facing forward--toward a billboard. At a grocery store checkout, idle shoppers browse impulse buys.