Retailer offers marketers first-party shopper data

Target renamed its media network business as Roundel, and said it will be using the data it has to help marketers reach its shoppers.

Speaking at Target’s NewFront presentation Thursday, Kristi Argyilan, president of Roundel (and formerly president of Target Media Network) said Roundel is in the business of “applying our first-party data to serve up personalized ads to our guests.”

Roundel will send “the right ad to the right people at the right time on the right channels, whether that be on our Target platforms or off platform with other publishers,” she said.

Both Target and Walmart made presentations at the NewFronts this week, emphasizing the information they have about what people buy in their stores. In a way they are competing with traditional media companies, which are increasingly trying to use data to target ads and measure the results of their campaigns.

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While Walmart is beefing up the original content on its ad supported streaming network Vudu, Roundel is connecting marketers with shoppers on a variety of platforms including in store video, Target websites and catalogs.

“Ultimately Roundel is a fresh identity to take our media business to the next level because we're not just operating a retail media network,” said Argyilan, adding that Roundel is putting marketer messages into non-Target channels, including display, social, audio or even linear television, based on shopper data.

Roundel will also have the ability to measure the effectiveness of campaigns by seeing how Target guests react to messages, whether that’s looking up more information about a product, adding it to an online shopping cart, or actually making a purchase, either in a story or online.

Target Media Network was launched in 2015. The company said the goal was to help consumers save time and money by connecting them with relevant offers and information.

It now has nearly 1,000 clients, including Dyson, Disney, Hasbro, Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Unilever, P&G, Pepsi, Kellogg’s, Mastercard and Allstate.

“We’re here to pledge that we want to do something few in the media business have done to date: We want to balance the math and the magic that comes from taking the IQ, which is what has made Target Media Network successful today, and marry it with the EQ, the emotional intelligence that [has made Target] such a great brand,” Argyilan said.