A new study suggests that retailers need to battle showrooming with more mobile-aware tactics. Fine. But let's not lose sight of the fact that people are in the store in part because the screens are not closing the loop for them.

As consumers consult multiple channels along their paths to purchase, their behaviors are also subject to change and even retreat to earlier habits. Shoppers themselves are learning as they are going about how much of a cross-platform dance they want to do before making a decision.

Why haven't digital ad formats themselves changed in ways that let the consumer make better use of them? Shouldn't the ads themselves be cross-platform-enabled?

The silos are starting to creak, if not crumble. We have been hearing this for how many years now? Are we really ready to move beyond the technical, channel, platform divisions that the digital revolution of the last two decades has given us? In so many op-eds, at so many of our own conferences, we hear marketers and agency executives chant the same mantras. "We need to break down the silos." "Your consumers don't care or think about 'channels.'" And a current trending quip that gives you two tired tropes for the price of one, "Omnichannel is the new Holy …