Uber Puts Retail Media on Wheels

Uber is the latest brand make the most of its first-party data by riding the rising wave of retail media. The ride-hailing and delivery app is expanding from its previous out-of-home ad business into a new product called Journey Ads, which is launching with 100 staffers in the U.S. The company plans to ramp up quickly with offices in Australia, Brazil, France, Mexico and the U.K. Uber is available in 70 countries, and its ambitions for the new offering include scaling Journey Ads to more than 30 nations. The Journey Ads platform promises to bring together location-based and shopping data, which Mark Grether, general manager of the Uber Advertising division, said was "closed-loop attribution." The first-party data comes from Uber's 122 million monthly users across its ride-hailing and delivery channels and will be used to support both performance and brand campaigns. Journey Ads will "enable advertisers to engage with our consumers through the entire marketing funnel—from awareness to consideration to conversion and retention," said Grether, who joined Uber in June 2021 after two years as director of Amazon Advertising. By putting Grether in charge of this new business unit, Uber is signaling an increased seriousness with advertising. Grether had been the CEO and chairmen of demand-side platform Sizmek. Formerly known as RocketFuel, Amazon acquired Sizmek in May 2019. Grether also put in time at WPP's GroupM and Xaxis subsidiaries. GroupM Unveils New Standards for Partners to Bridge the Measurement Gap Retail media hits the road As an advertising discipline, retail media has represented the evolution of the ad network. Primarily used by grocery chains to target their shoppers based on their ecommerce buying habits, the category has exploded in recent years. This past month's planned merger between Kroger and Albertsons is predicated on building a retail media network intended to challenge giants like Walmart and Amazon. Since Uber isn't a grocery chain, it's positioned Journey Ads as "mobility media." But it works just as a retail media network does—it just does it with wheels. “We believe Uber is paving the way for a new category: mobility media," Grether told Adweek. "Leveraging our first-party data and insights across both our mobility and delivery businesses presents the world’s largest companies with compelling new ways to reach people. Journey Ads are a unique way to grab consumers’ attention during their trip and drive purchases and brand awareness as they move with purpose. This is a unique and unbeatable opportunity to reach highly attentive audiences.” Journey Ads marks an evolution for the brand beyond its core business of driving and dropping off people, packages and food from one point to another. In April 2021, Uber started placing OOH ads on the top of taxis. It has since been running ads on 3,340 car tops (about 1,500 are taxis) in the U.S. in seven cities. "Uber is finally acknowledging that it needs to abide by the rules, considering the number of data leaks over the years," said Ellie Bamford, global head of Media and Connections, R/GA. After all, the company has had ads on Uber Eats for a while. But none of those ads have been tied to real-time location-based data, Bamford noted. "With this ad model, you’re talking about location-based tracking of users, which from a data privacy practice, is quite scary considering it’s a company that’s had privacy breaches," she said. "Even if you were to opt-out as a consumer, that doesn’t matter. It’s exact geo-location data, a really powerful tool you’re giving access to people. This is an incredibly attractive proposition for a brand and advertiser because of the captive audience at stake. Think about it - if you’re in an Uber, you're constantly looking at the app and engaged with it. We are talking about one-to-one, hyper-targeted, and hyper-scary." While the company didn't reveal its initial clients, Grether said Uber's Journey Ads already have deals with to run global, national and local campaigns. As for the kinds of ads, expect to see fairly typical OOH categories such as entertainment, retail, travel and tech. "The opportunities for brands are vast and we’re excited to collaborate with them over the coming months and as we continue to expand our international footprint over the next year," Grether said. Supporting the core business While the greater shift toward advertising and the retail media model makes obvious sense for Uber, the moment also appears driven by necessity. Federal regulators are expected to tighten regulations covering workers in the "gig economy," of which Uber and Lyft can be considered as the standouts, along with delivery services like DoorDash, which is also growing its own retail media offerings. Use Your Brand’s Platform to Connect Voters With Information Uber also still has ground to make up from the depths of the pandemic, when rideshares fell off a cliff. That business has returned, so this is as good a time as any for the brand to make the most of a rise in app usage. "Without question, Uber’s predictions in terms of ad revenue are underestimated," Bamford said. "They have an opportunity to sell this model as other platforms are oversaturated at the moment, creating ownership of space and an engaging ad experience for brands. For Uber, Grether said the company believes that the "advertising flywheel" that Journey Ads represents will help fuel the growth of its core marketplace businesses. "With our large user base and first-party data we can provide strong returns and insights for advertisers, which will attract more of them,"Grether said. "With more advertisers on our platform, we can create more profit that we can reinvest into the growth of our core businesses—accelerating the flywheel effects of our advertising program."