Manas Mittal of Uber Advertising Wants Your Ride to Make a Pit Stop for Coffee and Advertising
CANNES, France – The advertising industry has spent years chasing consumers from awareness to consideration to purchase. Uber Advertising has a different idea: Why not catch them while they’re literally on the way somewhere?
Speaking with Beet.TV at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Manas Mittal, vice president of product management at Uber Advertising, made the case that Uber’s biggest competitive advantage isn’t just transportation. It’s knowing when millions of people are about to make decisions.
“So Uber sits in the moment of intent,” Mittal said. “We have a lot of valuable customer signals… and we’re very close to the purchase intent.”
In other words, your ride to the dentist might also become your introduction to a coffee shop, grocery store or other advertiser that just happens to be a minute from your destination. Because apparently your final destination was merely a suggestion.
A detour sponsored by caffeine
The company’s newest offering, Destination Offers, may be the most Uber-like ad product imaginable.
Instead of simply serving an ad, Uber can recommend an alternate drop-off location near the rider’s destination if it happens to be an advertiser’s storefront.
“We’re able to suggest alternative drop-off points that are close to the user’s original destination,” Mittal said to Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. Those locations “represent advertiser locations.”
The idea is simple enough. Heading somewhere downtown? Uber might ask whether you’d rather be dropped at a nearby coffee chain and hand you a $2 coupon while it’s at it.
“That drives consideration but also conversion for the advertiser in a way that is very memorable,” Mittal said.
It’s one thing to tell marketers they can drive foot traffic. It’s another to literally steer the traffic there.
Chasing the holy grail
Uber isn’t shy about its ambitions for advertising.
Mittal described the business as “a large opportunity” supported by a growing audience. He noted that Uber’s membership program has reached 50 million engaged users, creating what he called “a wide open green space” for further investment.
Advertisers, meanwhile, aren’t asking for shinier banners or flashier creative. They want proof.
“They want better measurement,” Mittal said. “We want to collapse the funnel. That’s what the holy grail is.”
That means combining awareness, consideration, conversion and measurement into one experience rather than treating each as a separate campaign objective.
It’s an ambition that practically every retail media network, commerce platform and ad tech vendor now claims to share. Uber just happens to own the vehicle.
Turning soccer goals into shopping moments
Uber is also betting that real-world events create perfect opportunities for commerce.
Its Deal Drops product lets brands react to live moments, such as a World Cup goal, by serving timely promotions inside the Uber app.
“When a goal happens, you can show special content on the Uber app,” Mittal said. “That creates a memorable moment for the user.”
Meanwhile, Reorder Rewards encourages repeat purchases by nudging customers with offers shortly after previous orders.
Together, the products reflect a broader shift that interviewer David Kaplan summed up neatly: advertising is moving from awareness to action.
“Yeah, that’s exactly right,” Mittal said.
Why choose between media and commerce?
As Cannes conversations inevitably drifted toward the future of advertising, Kaplan asked whether tomorrow belongs to media or commerce.
Mittal declined to pick sides.
“I think it’s an ‘and’ question rather than an ‘or’ question,” he said, arguing that marketers increasingly want solutions spanning the entire customer journey while delivering clear attribution and reporting.
It’s a diplomatic answer, but also a practical one. For Uber, media and commerce are already sharing the same ride.
And if that ride happens to stop for an iced latte on the way, well, that’s apparently just another successful conversion.
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Axonet and Uber Advertising. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
CANNES, France – The advertising industry has spent years chasing consumers from awareness to consideration to purchase. Uber Advertising has a different idea: Why not catch them while they’re literally on the way somewhere?
Speaking with Beet.TV at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Manas Mittal, vice president of product management at Uber Advertising, made the case that Uber’s biggest competitive advantage isn’t just transportation. It’s knowing when millions of people are about to make decisions.
“So Uber sits in the moment of intent,” Mittal said. “We have a lot of valuable customer signals… and we’re very close to the purchase intent.”
In other words, your ride to the dentist might also become your introduction to a coffee shop, grocery store or other advertiser that just happens to be a minute from your destination. Because apparently your final destination was merely a suggestion.
A detour sponsored by caffeine
The company’s newest offering, Destination Offers, may be the most Uber-like ad product imaginable.
Instead of simply serving an ad, Uber can recommend an alternate drop-off location near the rider’s destination if it happens to be an advertiser’s storefront.
“We’re able to suggest alternative drop-off points that are close to the user’s original destination,” Mittal said to Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. Those locations “represent advertiser locations.”
The idea is simple enough. Heading somewhere downtown? Uber might ask whether you’d rather be dropped at a nearby coffee chain and hand you a $2 coupon while it’s at it.
“That drives consideration but also conversion for the advertiser in a way that is very memorable,” Mittal said.
It’s one thing to tell marketers they can drive foot traffic. It’s another to literally steer the traffic there.
Chasing the holy grail
Uber isn’t shy about its ambitions for advertising.
Mittal described the business as “a large opportunity” supported by a growing audience. He noted that Uber’s membership program has reached 50 million engaged users, creating what he called “a wide open green space” for further investment.
Advertisers, meanwhile, aren’t asking for shinier banners or flashier creative. They want proof.
“They want better measurement,” Mittal said. “We want to collapse the funnel. That’s what the holy grail is.”
That means combining awareness, consideration, conversion and measurement into one experience rather than treating each as a separate campaign objective.
It’s an ambition that practically every retail media network, commerce platform and ad tech vendor now claims to share. Uber just happens to own the vehicle.
Turning soccer goals into shopping moments
Uber is also betting that real-world events create perfect opportunities for commerce.
Its Deal Drops product lets brands react to live moments, such as a World Cup goal, by serving timely promotions inside the Uber app.
“When a goal happens, you can show special content on the Uber app,” Mittal said. “That creates a memorable moment for the user.”
Meanwhile, Reorder Rewards encourages repeat purchases by nudging customers with offers shortly after previous orders.
Together, the products reflect a broader shift that interviewer David Kaplan summed up neatly: advertising is moving from awareness to action.
“Yeah, that’s exactly right,” Mittal said.
Why choose between media and commerce?
As Cannes conversations inevitably drifted toward the future of advertising, Kaplan asked whether tomorrow belongs to media or commerce.
Mittal declined to pick sides.
“I think it’s an ‘and’ question rather than an ‘or’ question,” he said, arguing that marketers increasingly want solutions spanning the entire customer journey while delivering clear attribution and reporting.
It’s a diplomatic answer, but also a practical one. For Uber, media and commerce are already sharing the same ride.
And if that ride happens to stop for an iced latte on the way, well, that’s apparently just another successful conversion.
You’re watching The Beet.TV Leadership Sessions at Cannes Lions 2026, presented by Axonet and Uber Advertising. For more videos from this series, please visit this page. You can find all of our coverage from Cannes Lions 2026 here.
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