Home Screen Advantage

Connect with Ian Dewar on LinkedIn

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Apps That Get You Lost: How The North Face and Anthropologie Use Discovery to Drive Loyalty with Ian Dewar

meredith@caspianstudios.com (Brian Quinn, Ian Dewar, AppsFlyer) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:30:00 +0000

What if your app wasn't just a shopping tool — it was a storytelling platform that deepened customer relationships? Ian Dewar, who shaped customer experience strategies at The North Face, Anthropologie, and across the VF family of brands, makes a compelling case for rethinking how apps serve customers. In this episode, he explores how leading retailers have transformed their apps from transaction engines into discovery platforms: from rewarding customers for hiking national parks instead of just spending money, to pioneering "in-store mode" that bridges digital wishlists with physical retail, to using curated personalization that introduces customers to products they didn't know the brand even made.

This is a deep dive into building brand affinity, using behavioral data to drive frequency over acquisition, and what it actually means to make an app worth opening — not just for checkout, but for connection.

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On customer frequency vs. acquisition:

“The metric for growth for established and mature retailers is not customer acquisition. It's customer frequency."

"We don't want to sell people product they're not going to use."

On the app being a brand extension:

“By creating these other engagement opportunities on the app, it becomes that brand extension versus mobile web or desktop.”

On apps sitting at the center of the omnichannel experience:

“Apps should have visibility to everything you've bought in the store, online, everything that's sitting in your cart, what's in your wishlist.”

On the app as a discovery tool:

"The future of where apps really add value is this ability to intertwine content, storytelling, brand messaging with the ease to product discovery."

On personalization done right:

"It's not marketing gobbledygook to trick people into buying things they don't need. It's really adding to utility."

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Episode Timestamps

01:28 From bike tours to The North Face — Ian's unconventional journey into retail

03:43 National Parks check-in: Rewarding exploration, not just transactions

06:35 Getting internal buy-in when the ROI isn't immediate

09:34 How the app became the hub for better customers

12:17 In-store mode: Making the app work inside physical store

14:37 The jeans problem: Why omnichannel data silos still break the customer experience

16:59 App strategy — quality over quantity in user acquisition

19:12 Frequency over acquisition — the growth metric that actually matters

21:17 Becoming the brand of choice, not just a consideration

24:48 The future of discovery — curated personalization vs. frictionless checkout

27:56 Using behavioral data to show customers what they didn't know you made

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Links

Connect with Stephane Godoy on LinkedIn

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Stop Thinking in Channels. Start Thinking in Relationships. With Stephane Godoy, Head of Digitalization & E-Commerce at KFC

meredith@caspianstudios.com (Brian Quinn, Stephane Godoy, AppsFlyer, KFC) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

What if your app wasn't a sales channel — it was your face to the customer? Stephane Godoy, who leads eCommerce and digitization at KFC, has spent years proving exactly that across a complex, multi-market, franchise-operated footprint. In this episode, he breaks down how KFC turned its app into a relationship engine: from the moment leadership stopped seeing mobile as a cost and started seeing it as the connective tissue between every other channel, to running 70+ simultaneous personalized campaigns, to using AI to discover that the restaurant — not the app — was driving customer churn.

This is a masterclass in change management, behavioral data, and what it actually means to build loyalty without leaning on discounts.

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On what the app actually is:

"Stop seeing the app as a sales channel. It's what connects every other channel you have. It becomes the heart of it."

On app design philosophy:

"It's not about the speed to checkout. It's the speed to confidence."

On loyalty programs:

"Loyalty is not about discounts. Loyalty is a way of creating behaviors in our customers."

On personalization:

"Once you understand that personalization is not about surveillance — it's about service — the game changes."

On the closing philosophy:

"Stop thinking in channels. Start thinking in relationships."

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Episode Timestamps

→ 00:00 — Cold Open: The Confidence Problem

→ 01:34 — What Mobile First Actually Means Inside a Business

→ 03:29 — The Moment KFC Leadership Took the App Seriously

→ 05:46 — Designing for Context, Not Pages

→ 07:37 — Why Loyalty Is Not About Discounts

→ 09:31 — Personalization: The Abandoned Cart Family Example

→ 12:07 — Running 70–100 Campaigns Simultaneously With Data

→ 15:10 — The AI Chatbot Flop (And What They Learned)

→ 16:31 — When the Restaurant Is Causing the Churn, Not the App

→ 19:02 — Connecting Intent Before Arrival: What's Next

→ 19:55 — Final Advice: Stop Thinking in Channels

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Featured Resource

AppsFlyer recently published The Omnichannel Business Advantage — a practical playbook for connecting channels, measuring real impact, and scaling app-led growth. It covers the four-value-stream ROI model Stephane references (direct revenue, influenced revenue, operational savings, and lifetime value lift), the behavioral intelligence framework, and a 90-day proof-of-value sprint you can run inside your organization.

→ Download the playbook

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Links

Connect with David LoPresti on LinkedIn

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From $30M to $190M: U-Haul's Mobile Transformation Playbook with David LoPresti, Director of Apps

meredith@caspianstudios.com (Brian Quinn, David LoPresti, AppsFlyer, U-Haul) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0000

David LoPresti reveals how U-Haul's Moving Help program grew from $30M to $190M by reimagining their mobile app as a profit engine. In this episode, discover U-Haul's strategic focus on customer lifetime value, their approach to cross channel marketing attribution, and why their analytics-driven strategy leads them to benchmark against Starbucks rather than industry competitors.

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On anticipating customer needs:

“ Now I know that if the user opens up the app and they don't have a truck reserved, and I know that this particular customer moved 10 months ago, so they're likely in an apartment and they're moving two months later, now is my opportunity to make sure that this customer is in the frame of mind that this is the thing that they're likely to need. So how do I make it accessible to them without them having to search for it? And I think that's ultimately what we're trying to do is anticipate what the customer's trying to find and just put it front and center in front of them so they don't have to search for it.”

On presenting the right services at the right moment:

“ You have truck rental, you have self storage, you have labor, you have boxes. You have all these individual business units that of course are laser focused on their individual piece of that pile. But the reality is is that customer is moving across multiple product lines. There's a flow and there's a balance of when these things need to be presented. Those recommendations and those things were presented need to be rooted in an actual data-driven source. I am offering this or am I presenting this piece of information or this product or service at this point in time because the data reflects that.”

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Episode Timestamps:

*(01:50): David's 21-Year Journey at U-Haul

*(03:15): How U-Haul transformed the rental experience with self-service mobile access

*(06:45): Why U-Haul prioritizes customer lifetime value over acquisition

*(09:05): Mining first-party data to understand behavior and anticipate needs

*(12:16): A new homescreen experience that presents the right information at the right time

*(17:30): Lessons learned

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Links:

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Introducing: Home Screen Advantage

meredith@caspianstudios.com (Brian Quinn, AppsFlyer) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:40:00 +0000

Your customer’s home screen, it’s the most valuable real estate in the digital world. So why let it go to waste?

Home Screen Advantage is the podcast for enterprise leaders who know mobile isn’t just another channel. It’s the front line of loyalty, growth, and long-term customer value. Hosted by Brian Quinn, President and GM at AppsFlyer.

In each episode, he sits down with decision-makers behind today’s most effective mobile strategies. You’ll learn about how the best apps tap into consumer habits to drive growth, turn engagement into real revenue, and the role apps play in this new AI era.

Want to know how iconic brands are winning on mobile? We’ve got the playbook.

Home Screen Advantage. Get on the home screen. Get in the game.

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Links