Uber boosts advertising sales pitch with help from Omnicom

Dive Brief:

Uber’s advertising division announced a partnership with Omnicom Media Group (OMG) to wed its mobility and retail media inventory with Omnicom’s audience insights, per a press release. The move is the first holding company tie-up for Uber’s ad business.
Through the partnership, Omnicom will be able to combine Uber’s mobility and delivery insights with the audience data from its own Omni open operating system to craft more relevant and impactful campaigns.
OMG will also be considered a priority partner for new releases from Uber’s advertising division. The move arrives as Uber looks to bolster its ad-targeting capabilities through a slew of recent partnerships.

Dive Insight:

As Uber looks to shore up its advertising know-how, a tie-up with OMG could help the ride-hailing company better understand its targeting efforts. For Omnicom, the partnership could similarly help its clients understand Uber’s impact on commerce, with Uber touting over 130 million monthly active users.

“As we look to the future of mobility and retail media, this new partnership taps into OMG’s vast data and partnerships, enabling us to take on a new level of precision in intelligent targeting, insights and activation for advertisers,” said Mark Grether, vice president and general manager for Uber’s advertising division, in a statement.

Uber has set an ambitious goal of growing its advertising segment to more than $1 billion in revenue by 2024. To that end, the company has forged several partnerships, including one with e-commerce company Rokt that uses machine learning to serve additional product options and offers to consumers as they are completing online transactions. In addition, the company’s Drizly alcohol delivery brand launched its own ad network service, giving brands the ability to offer ads across search and display, its media network and customized options.

Mobile has become an increasingly important channel for e-commerce. According to Comscore’s 2023 State of Digital Commerce Report, mobile commanded nearly 40% of all digital consumer retail spending in Q4 2022. As a result, the industry is beginning to focus on building mobile retail ad networks.

Like Uber, Lyft has created a media division, placing ads on digital rooftop screens, in-car tablets and other assets owned by the company, such as bike rental stations. On the provider side, T-Mobile acquired Octopus International in January 2022, a company that operates interactive video screens in ride-share vehicles.