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After more than three years as SVP of Retail Media at Albertsons, Kristi Argylan he takes a ride to Uber to drive him advertising business.
She steps into the role she vacated Mark Grether when he left in May to run PayPal ads.
Her first day is Wednesday, and her first job is to set up her laptop, she joked.
But Argyilan plans to start the New Year “in a significant, strong way,” she said, including being at CES in Las Vegas in January, and it will be a whirlwind of meetings.
“I want to sit down with Uber Ads customers and get feedback from them,” she said. “I want to know what worked well and what areas they want us to step up or get into.”
Prior to Albertsons, Argyilan was senior vice president of brand innovation at Bed Bath & Beyond and president of Roundel—Target’s retail media business—which she also helped launch.
She spoke to AdExchanger the day before taking over management of Uber Ads.
AdExchanger: What precipitated the move to Uber?
KRISTI ARGYILAN: I like the signals that Uber has as an ad business built around how people move in the world. But it’s not just about the places people go; it’s also about the things they brought to them.
The delivery and mobility business is super interesting from a media and advertising perspective, and so is the scale. This is a two-year-old business, and it’s already a billion dollars.
I was going to ask if you’re going to miss the grocery store, but I’m guessing you’re not really leaving it because Uber has a grocery delivery service.
This is where my grocery experience comes into play, with Uber Eats. In many ways, my previous experiences translate directly to Uber.
Are there any universal truths that apply to media networks regardless of industry?
Many of the areas where retail media businesses thrive and where they feel friction or struggle are consistent across different types of businesses.
Running an advertising business within a non-advertising company means a lot of internal advocacy work to get people inside to understand the benefits of retail media. Building internal cooperation is just as important as building a differentiated offer.
At Albertsons, you were very involved in the encouraging the standardization of retail media. Will that continue to be a priority for you at Uber?
Absolutely. Standardization is key to any retail media business, as we all hear from advertisers all the time about the complexity of dealing with hundreds of snowflakes.
We’re all a little different, and that’s just not sustainable for our clients. I’ve heard some larger clients say, “I have to draw the line at seven retail media partners, because I can’t justify my company hiring people to manage more than that.”
So if we don’t all standardize and the line is drawn at seven, it’s going to end up being a challenge for everyone except maybe Amazon and Walmart. We have to be above the line, and standardization and partnership is the only way to do that.
Uber drivers are a captive audience. But they use the app as a utility and may not expect to see ads, which means you have to turn advertising into a utility as well, or it might bother people. How do you thread that needle?
This is also true for every trader. You need to add to the experience, not take away from it.
But especially when you consider all the different moments of engagement that Uber has with its users, there’s really a responsibility on us to create content that’s fun, engaging and welcoming, not intrusive.
The advertising industry has many “godfathers”. Boris Mouzykantskii from IPONWEB and Brian O’Kelley each referred to as the “godfather of ad tech” at various points. But you never hear about godfathers in ad tech. Are you the godmother of retail media? I think we need godmothers.
If you want to give it to me, I’ll take it!
The answers are slightly edited and summarized.
For more articles on Krista Argyilan, click here.
