The advertising industry loves a good origin story, and few executives can claim to have been present at the creation of an entire media category. Fewer still have helped shape the standards that govern it.

One such executive helped birth retail media at Target, scaled it at Albertsons, and now finds herself expanding the definition of what commerce media can become. The journey from launching Target Media Network - later rebranded as Roundel - to leading global advertising at a platform that moves people and delivers goods in real-time represents a logical evolution in thinking about first-party data and consumer moments.

"There are some really important platforms out there that have just fundamentally changed our behavior as consumers, and Uber is one of those," said Kristi Argyilan, global head of advertising at Uber Advertising, in a video interview with Beet.TV. "And it's super exciting to build an ad proposition around that."

The first-party data revelation

Argyilan's path to commerce media began in 2014 when she left the agency world to join Target. The retailer wanted someone to lead its total media practice, encompassing strategy, measurement, social, and guest engagement.

What she discovered there would shape her career trajectory. "We started to see the emerging value of first-party data when applied to marketing programs, and the immediate increase in effectiveness that we saw by using first-party data versus the data that we had in the industry, which was more based on cookie pools," Argyilan said.

That realization sparked the creation of what became a multi-billion-dollar industry. Retail media's appeal lay in offering alternatives to the dominant walled gardens, and the proposition resonated with marketers hungry for options.

Building the standards

Her next chapter at Albertsons involved bringing their retail media practice in-house from an outsourced agency arrangement. The existing setup provided revenue share but failed to deliver on the promise of creating meaningful advertising moments for consumers.

Client feedback during this period proved invaluable. "I had an opportunity to listen to a lot of clients in terms of what they needed from retail media in order for them to continue to invest in it," Argyilan recalled. The work extended beyond building Albertsons Media Collective.

Collaboration with the IAB to establish retail media standards created benchmarks the industry still uses today. "It continues to give us a benchmark, all of us, a benchmark in terms of what we should be building toward to make it easier for clients to buy," she said.

The delivery media opportunity

At Uber, Argyilan discovered something broader than traditional retail media. The platform's unique position - tracking people going places and getting things delivered hour by hour - opened new possibilities for contextual advertising.

Uber Advertising has been expanding its capabilities, recently launching Uber Intelligence, a data and insights platform developed with LiveRamp, and introducing JourneyTV Presents, an in-ride entertainment experience with premium content partners.

"What's the premise behind the delivery? Does it look like somebody's, it's a Sunday night and they're buying a bunch of lunch materials for their kids' lunches for school? Are they trying to do a movie night at home?" Argyilan explained. "We have that kind of context to understand what the moment is that someone is having things delivered to their home."

Advice for the next generation

For young professionals eyeing the industry, Argyilan offered reassurance about artificial intelligence concerns. "Do not let AI scare you away. There's plenty of really rich, wonderful work for all levels of people to do in the advertising and media space," she said.

Young professionals possess an advantage veterans cannot replicate: they understand emerging consumer trends because they live them. "They can see it before it becomes like a macro trend," Argyilan noted.

"As we become more and more technology-driven, as data and technology-driven as an industry, it's still about human connection," she said. "I especially welcome all of the different ways that they can help us craft human connection."