tonight on "nightline," shopping wars. with the holiday buying blitz in full swing, retailers have now high tech ways to get inside your pocketbook and your mind. tonight, a "nightline" guide to shopping smart. how to find the best deems on your phone and in the aisle. and avoid being taken. plus, the last lions. they face an increasingly desperate struggle to survive in the wild. but the power of a lioness' will and the love shared by the film makers who tell her story create an uncommon story of resilience, resolve and strength. and shiny happy people.

behind these wide political grins, the not so nice real message, they want you to hear. tonight, we run campaign ads through a truth translator. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," december 8th, 2011. >> good evening, i'm cynthia mcfadden. we begin tonight on the front lines of a seasonal struggle. the shopping wars. there are only 16 days til the clock strikes christmas and stores are fighting over every cent you have to spend. for some retailers, the holiday season represents up to 40% of annual sales, with such high stakes, you can expect retailers to aggressively pursue any sales edge they can get. but what they actually do might still surprise you. tonight

tonight, abc's dan harris goes shopping. >> reporter: they can play you christmas carols, ladle on the tinsel and cart out the mall santas, but make no mistake. the holiday shopping season is a war. and in the battle for the $465 billion we will spend, some stores will try to pick your pocket, white others will literally try to read your mind. but there are ways for you to fight back. it is literally one-fifth the price. more on that in a moment, but let's start with some sneaky tricks you should look out for. >> it's a huge campaign of disinformation, if you will, where retailers are trying to get us to part money with our wallet. >> reporter: we asked shopping blogger dan to item us about the top three tricks. number one? the never-ending sale. that's when stores keep items marked down all year round. so it's a tale that is not a sale. >> reporter: it's the never

ending sale because it is always on sale at that price, that can't really be considered on sale now. >> reporter: so, if it is always 50% off, it never 50% off. >> exactly. >> reporter: number two, the make and model mismatch, where stores offer to match a competitor's sales price but not really. you see a deal in the newspaper, it says, you find us a cheaper price on this product, we'll match it. >> that's right. >> reporter: you tell them, i found it, and they say, well -- >> depends on the product. it's usually on the cheapest tvs or the cheapest laptops where the model number is slightly different. that's all they need to be able to say. >> reporter: number three, the disappearing carrot. where stores lure you in with a super cheap sale item but they only have a few in stock. so they list products for a low price, you wait in line, you get in the door, they say, sorry, we're sold out and then they hope you buy other stuff. >> yes. they get you with the up-sale. with the blu-ray player you hadn't planned on buying.

>> reporter: so it's not quite a bait and switch. like a bait and completely gyp you. as we said, this is a war. and in wars, you need spies. so, check this out. some stores are now secretly deploying special cameras with facial recognition technology, near the display cases, so they can tell what you are thinking as you eyeball the goods, which helps them figure out how to rearrange the stores to get you to spend more. john ross from a company called shopper scientists, showed me how this works, by having the software examine my face as i shopped online for a christmas gift for my wife. the program could tell i was put off by the prices at tiffany -- >> what is this? five grand? that's not apiece, is it? >> reporter: no. >> that's a good thing. >> reporter: no, sorry, baby, you're not getting these. >> so, your interest was high but disagreeing score, just spiking. >> reporter: and intrigued by

the idea of adopting my wife a cat from the aspca. >> so, you are open to the idea of this cat and -- looking pretty good. >> reporter: the program read it when ann here didn't like this bag. >> it looks a bit cheap because it's so shiny. >> reporter: and when stephanie here found a dress that she hated. >> you are shaking your head and disagreeing throw the roof here, so -- >> reporter: isn't that a little creepy? >> well, it could be. but the experience is actually more about improving the experience. >> reporter: it's not about invading our privacy, he insists. but instead, about tailoring the shopping experience so we buy more stuff. as we said, in this retail war, there are weapons you can use to fight for your own interests. so, for this part of the story, we are bringing in a ringer. her name is diana. she's a semiprofessional shopping ninja. ready for this. >> i'm ready. >> reporter: all right. diana is a self-made expert in the new generation of shopping apps, like google shopper,

amazon price check and shop savp i have which allow you to scan the bar codes of any product and see if you can get it online for cheaper. this laptop cable lock is $24.99 in the store, but online? wow. >> starts at $4.79. >> reporter: that's it wilitera one-fifth the price. >> reporter: they may charge you for shipping, these online items, but the apps work very well at the toy store, too, where the barbie was $25.99 but online -- 17 bucks. >> yep. >> reporter: interesting. so, people are overpaying for their barbies. >> yeah. thomas the train -- ah -- $44 here, $34 online. $34 on amazon. >> reporter: good savings. >> yeah. rrm just one weapon in your arsenal, an arrow in your giver as you engage in commercial comebat this season. be careful out there for "nightline" this is dan harris in new york.

>> fascinating. in response to our story, best buy says it is going to match the price of any retail competitors for any identical product onsale until christmas. next up, tighting tooth and nail for survival. a story of feline strength, maternal courage and enduring a story of feline strength, maternal courage and enduring pride. aking abilify, i was taking an antidepressant alone. most of the time i could pull myself together and face the day. but other days, i still struggled with my depression. i was coping, but sometimes it really weighed me down. i'd been feeling stuck for a long time. i just couldn't shake my depression. so i talked to my doctor, and he added abilify to my antidepressant. he said it could help with my depression, and that some people had symptom improvement as early as 1 to 2 weeks. i'm glad i talked to him. i wish i'd done it sooner. now i feel more in control of my depression. [ male announcer ] abilify is not for everyone. call your doctor if your depression worsens

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with cynthia mcfadden. >> they sit atop the food chain, but human encroachment has managed to drive lions in the wild to the edge of extinction. for the most part, their ordeal is invisible, but tonight, we meet an extraordinary couple who have devoted their lives to documenting the lions' majestic struggle, by filming them dale

after day and week after week. the results are breathtaking. here's my co-anchor, bill weir. >> reporter: a storm is building over the plains of botswana. and beneath it, a single mother frets. her name is ma di tau, and it's been weeks since an saiding pride mortally wounded her mate. after ending his long reign, they'll try to wipe out his blood line by hunting ma di t tau's cubs. she now has the most primal of decisions. fight or flight? a decision complicated by the crock-infested water that surrounding them. cubs are too young to travel fast and this family is being stalked by the big invading males and that same rival lioness from the battle that gave her a signature wound and the name silvereye. the last lions include some of the most incredible wild life footage filmed but equally face

nafting a love story the audience never sees. the one behind the camera. they are dereck and beverly joubert. filmmakers, big cat protectors and partners in every conceivable way. sometimes dereck jumps into the plane to get supplies. >> salted water, straight from the delta. >> reporter: occasionally, beverly will cook for guests. but almost every day for 30 years, these high school sweethearts have been alone together in the wild. >> the longest we went without seeing anybody at all was 270 days, i think. and then we needed to get out. >> reporter: yeah. you know, you should do a film on marriage. because i don't know a lot of couples that could live out here for 270 days and still stay together. >> well, maybe that's the answer. you do have to. you have to have that time without society around you.

>> reporter: that's it. a lifetime ago they left south africa in search of edadventure. became smitten with the big cats and never went back. each dawn, they load up their four-wheel drive office and take that swampy commute against this delta. they head past monitor lizards, around the yawning hippos. take a left at the adorable baby elephant. >> still battling to walk. he could have been worn laborn night. >> reporter: and begin looking for the clues that will lead us to lions. >> very often they kill them by biting into the throat. biting right in here. and we think that that's to block off the veins going up to the brain. >> reporter: every bird call has meaning, every moving shadow makes sense. >> some buffalo up there. >> yeah. cute. lions could have moved there. >> reporter: and they work with

the quiet patience needed to capture a sequence like this. ma di tau on the run from silvereye and the others swims for safety, two cubs follow, but the littlest one hesitates which is exactly what the hungry crocodile was hoping for. considering the pure brutality of this place, it seems unlikely we'll ever find the stars of "the last lions" but wouldn't you know it, the first cat we see? silvereye. feel like i'm seeing a movie star on the street. just around the bend, right next to a big kiddy cuddle pile is ma di tau. they're the most muscular lions in africa, and each one has a soul and a personality. >>ism think too often people see lions as these ferocious beasts. where here, they realize that they, too, have struggles.

>> reporter: the story of a working mother. >> it truly is. >> reporter: and every story they tell, every image they capture is an effort to create a global uproar. because these are, quite literally, the last lions. when the jouberts were born, there were 450,000 of them in africa. now, they say there's as few as 20,000. and each year, other countries in africa sell 600 lion hunting permits. the vast majority to americans. >> we think that there- these wild lions will be extinct in 10 or 15 years. >> reporter: really? hunting has been part of the human condition for thousands of years. do you think we can ever eliminate it entirely? when it comes to species like this? there is as going to be somebody who is going to pay a lot of money to come shoot a lion. >> so, that's the key. in species like this, we have to. we have to contain those urges that we have. you know, going out to shoot deer in new jersey or wherever

you do that, that's a completely different conversation. shooting the last of the 20,000 lions is dramatic. >> we have to turn safari hunting into a sport that is purely taking a camera and seeing, you know, what you can capture, because if we don't, the images that we have are going to be the last of the species. >> reporter: do have children? >> no. these are our children. that was a conscious decision that we made, really early on, as we started exploring and we realized that we wouldn't be able to do it with kids. and so, you might say it was a selfish decision, but actually i don't regret it. i think we've been able to dedicate ourselves to what we truly believe in, what we truly are passionate in. and as we see the decline of all the animals in africa, we can actually fight harder. >> we sit doet out to have an extraordinary life and so far we

have. >> yeah. >> what gorgeous animals. big cat week begins this sunday on nat geo wild. next up, they say it with a smile -- >> i'm not ashamed to admit i'm a christian. >> but what's the hidden message behind these campaign ads? financial advice is everywhere. real, objective investing help? that's a little harder to find. but here's what i know -- td ameritrade doesn't manage mutual funds... or underwrite stocks and bonds. or even publish their own research. so, guidance from td ameritrade isn't about their priorities. it's about mine. straightforward guidance. that's what makes td ameritrade different. ♪ [ male announcer ] trade commission-free for 60 days. plus get up to $600 when you open an account.

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any american who has prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so. so said gor i have dal. but like it or not, there are often running and some of what they're saying may seem perfe

perfectly nice until you really listen. here's abc's john berman. >> reporter: don't like now, but there are two campaigns going on here. the one in happy world, where all the smiley candidates are trying to win your vote. and the one in tricky world, were all the smiley candidates are trying to mess with your brain. >> i think people understand that i'm a man of steadiness and constant sichlt. >> reporter: this ad more mitt romney seems like it lives in happy world. >> i've been married to the same woman for 42 years. >> reporter: you know who hasn't been married to the same woman for 42 years? twice divorced newt gingrich. that's tricky world. in happy world, it's nice that mitt romney can say -- >> i've been in the same church my entire life. >> reporter: you know who hasn't been in the entire church his whole life? lutheran turned southern baptist turned catholic newt gingrich. >> i'm mitt romney and i approve this message. >> reporter: you can bet he does. but the subliminal messages that

dominate the landscape of tricky world are a campaign staple. nothing says don't vote for this guy like grainy photos and dark music. but tricky world can be in focus and even divine. rick perry's been running ads in iowa touting his faith. >> i'm not ashamed to admit that i'm a christian. >> reporter: happy world, but oh, no. >> when you run for president, you get a bunch of questions about your faith. >> reporter: you know who gets a lot of questions about his faith? mitt romney's mormon beliefs are seen as a turn off for some evangelical voters. tricky world comes in all shapes and sizes. right down to the size of a rat. perhaps the most famous subliminal ad of all time -- >> the gore prescription plan? bureaucrats decide. >> reporter: you may have missed it, but this republican ad for george w. bush in 2000 seemed to label al gore a rat. now, that's subliminal. even if george bush wouldn't admit it. >> i didn't see rats when i saw

it, no. >> reporter: or couldn't pronounce it. >> you thought you did. you talk about subliminal. >> reporter: and there was little about the ads jon corzine ran against chris christie in 2009 that showcased his girth, which promised christie to famously respond to don imus -- >> man up and say i'm fat. >> reporter: in our latest poll, 79% of iowans say newt's marital past is not a major factor. rick per rip's ad on faith has registered hundreds of thousands of dislikes on youtube. >> something wrong in this country when gaves can serve openly in the military, but our kids can't openly celebrate christmas or pray in school. >> repeporter: and the big-bone chris christie was elected governor, while jon corzine wasch thing to a congressional investigation today. maybe subliminal is not sublime.