The Watson Weekly is sponsored by Avalara — the agentic AI platform automating global tax and compliance for leading eCommerce brands with simple plans, transparent pricing, and complete coverage across Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and more.

Target has put its advertising business and its marketplace under a hotel marketer, and I think that tells you more about how Michael Fiddelke sees Roundel than anything Target has said about Roundel directly.

Mark Weinstein started at Target on September 14 as chief marketing and guest experience officer, reporting straight to Fiddelke. He spent more than 16 years at Hilton and ran global marketing there from 2020 until he stepped down on September 10, covering all 28 of the company's brands and the Hilton Honors loyalty program. At Target his remit covers brand, loyalty, guest experience, and digital, and it also takes in Roundel and Target+.

Fiddelke created the role in February as part of a leadership reshuffle that moved Cara Sylvester from guest experience to merchandising and made Lisa Roath chief operating officer. The combined marketing and guest experience job went to an external search, and Weinstein is the only outside hire to come out of that rebuild.

I'm used to seeing retail media sit close to merchandising or under a dedicated ad sales leader, because the money comes from suppliers and those relationships run through the category teams. Target has put Roundel next to the loyalty program. Roundel sells brands access to Target shoppers and to what Target knows about them, and a lot of that knowledge comes through Target Circle, so a loyalty specialist running both is a coherent choice if Fiddelke wants Circle data working harder for shoppers and advertisers at once.

Hotels are an odd place to learn that job. A Hilton guest might book a handful of nights a year, with each stay worth hundreds of dollars, while a Target guest comes in most weeks to pick up paper towels and a birthday card. Personalization at Hilton can mean remembering that a guest likes a high floor, whereas at Target it means choosing which detergent gets the top slot in the app, often from a set of brands paying Roundel for that slot.

Weinstein is now accountable both for how shopping at Target feels and for the revenue line that puts sponsored placements into Target's app and site. Every sponsored product tile is a small version of that trade-off, and when the two pull in different directions he is the one who decides, because both now sit in his organization.

Fiddelke's statement talks about knowing and engaging guests more deeply, which is the language of a loyalty program. Suppliers spending money with Roundel will want to know what Weinstein's own targets are. If his bonus leans toward guest satisfaction, a CPG brand trying to buy more placement on a crowded search page is negotiating with someone who has a reason to show less of it, and I haven't seen Target say how that gets balanced.

Amazon has done this with suppliers before. It took warrants in Air Transport Services Group in 2016 and in Plug Power a year later, and in both cases the equity vested as Amazon sent them more business. Kuehne+Nagel is now on similar terms, although the release doesn't say how many shares the option covers or what level of spend unlocks them. The company has arranged for a bank to hedge the position, which means existing shareholders carry part of the cost.

AWS needs someone to move equipment into new data centers, and Kuehne+Nagel is the largest air and sea forwarder in the world. That part of the deal makes sense to me.

I'm less sure about the rest. Amazon runs its own freight operation and competes with forwarders for cargo, and this agreement could make it a Kuehne+Nagel shareholder within seven years. The company says it serves about 400,000 customers. Some of them sell on Amazon, and some compete with it, and none of them were consulted.