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With an agency background that spans some of the industry’s most highly regarded creative shops like Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Arnold, Kristi Argyilan describes creative problem-solving as a skill she learned early on.
Now, as senior vp of retail media at Albertsons Media Collective, Argyilan draws on her creative roots as well as her time in media agencies and stint at Target and Roundel to lead the grocer into a new era of commerce media. ADWEEK caught up with Argyilan to discuss how the national supermarket chain is differentiating as competition amongst retail media networks heats up.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
ADWEEK: How is retail media driving revenue for Albertsons?
Kristi Argyilan: The retail media business is a growth lever for the company and one of the top strategic priorities. To continue to transform, you have to have profit-driven businesses that can fuel that transformation. How do we become a more digital retailer? How do we bring a different assortment mix? How do we support our team members, the way that we need to and that all comes from the more profit-rich lines of business that Albertsons has?
I’m hitting my three-year anniversary, and they have not wavered off of that, which has been important to ensure we have the resources we need to deliver back to our customers and our company. They’re not easy businesses to run because there are always conflicting priorities within a company, but we have a lot of tailwinds behind us and leadership team support to resolve wherever there might be a conflict in priorities because the intent is not to create conflict, but to come together as a team. [Albertsons doesn’t yet break out revenue numbers from retail media.]
We’ve heard a lot about the internal challenges that retailers face when building out a retail media business because the goals of the RMN can sometimes conflict with—and overlap with—the merchandising and sales teams. How is Albertsons navigating those organizational challenges?
The most important thing is education and bringing people along. If you work in the digital media and marketing space long enough—we have our lingo, we put our heads down, and we move at a really fast pace. It’s very different from where retail comes from. I see it as my responsibility to pause long enough to make sure that I’m explaining what we do and how it’s accretive to the company overall.
