NEW YORK: Walmart, the retailer, is bringing its brand mission "to life" across digital screens and physical stores, thus serving the needs of increasingly cross-channel shoppers.

Brian Monahan, vp/marketing at Walmart.com, told delegates at the Advertising Age Digital Conference 2014 that consumers are deeply engaged with new media.

"Americans, on average, are spending more time with media each day than they do sleeping," he said. (For more, including how the company is creating innovative digital tools, read's Warc's exclusive report: Walmart seeks to solve marketing's "software problem".)

"That comes with 1,200 marketing messages a day; so customers, as they are moving across all these screens and devices [are] trying to decide what they want, what's the right value for a bargain."

Despite this shift in popular habits, Walmart's main objective remains the same - and also serves as a guide in navigating the complex consumer landscape.

"They may have changed the way they shop, but Walmart's mission is the same: we help people save money so they can live better, let them find great value on great products so they can enjoy those products, and keep those savings for other things that matter to their family," said Monahan.

"Our task today is to bring that mission to life as customers are moving across digital and physical to go shopping."

The firm has introduced a variety of offerings for connected shoppers, from a mobile app providing unique functions when they enter stores to testing "click and collect" ecommerce services in certain markets.

Said Monahan, "This is how Walmart is trying to bridge physical and digital, and help our customer get what they want, when they want it and how they want it."

All too often, however, brands simply attempt to boost the frequency of their advertising, rather than rolling out useful tools and platforms.

"The default instinct that marketers seem to have is to try to overcome it with tonnage - buy more, drive the CPM down," he said.

"We just wind up bombarding our customers with noise, and it should be no surprise that they are just not paying attention."

Data sourced from Warc