From Negotiation to Partnership: Session Recap: Key Takeaways from Olivia Giaimo, Shanteria Jones at Commerce Media Brand Summit 2025

2026, CMBS. Fireside Chat: From Negotiation to Partnership: Rethinking JBP with Retail Media Networks

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: hi everyone. Thanks for being here. My name is Olivia Gimo. I go by Liv. I'm Assistant Vice President of Retail Media Strategy at Craft + Commerce, and I'm super excited to be here today. I've really lived, my name, the evolution of retail media from back when it was like the Quotient and Triad days, where it felt like it was hardly a topic of conversation, to the expansive and incredibly complex ecosystem that we operate in today.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: I'm joined today by Shanterria Jones.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. I'm Shanterria Jones. I am the Director of Shopper Marketing for Chobani, so the beautiful yogurt that you guys had today. But that's not just all that we have. We are also in creamer and oat milk, and continue to expand into other categories.

And so I partner closely with Craft + Commerce in our retail media space, and we're excited to talk about JVPs

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: today. JVPs. Stressful topic. It is. Everyone loves JVPs. All right, so before we get started, I would love to start with just a collective deep breath 'cause we know JVPs can be an anxiety-inducing topic.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So if we can have everybody breathe in, and breathe out. Awesome. Thank you for humoring me on that one. So let's dive in. Yeah. Shanterria, I've heard you say this many times, if you're starting now, you're starting late. We all wanna get ahead, but there's always so many things going on at all times. When should you be starting JVP negotiations, and what are the first steps you should take?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Yeah. I think oftentimes we think that we sign the JVP in Q3, Q4, we have those discussions, but a lot of that starts early on. So for us at Chobani, we actually start that in Q1. After we sign our JVP, we say, "Great- This is our investment in you as our RMN. Now we need to have the conversation about what we expect out of this investment, right?

This conversation isn't just, "Hey, we're gonna run on-site, off-site CTV." It's, "This is what I'm expecting from an incrementality standpoint," right? "This is what I'm expecting from a net new buyer standpoint. How are we growing your units with you?" But we also have taken a different position on that.

We're so used to receiving the information that we get from the RMNs, that we actually chose to do something different. This year, we're leveraging a lot of Walmart's first party data, specifically also at Krogers, at 80- 8451, where we start to integrate a lot of their data into the reporting that we have.

So we know a lot of our enterprise goals focus around units and the new buyers, and so that translate into the KPIs that we have for our RMNs, right? We should not be having segmented conversations about what's happening with this SLR and- ... what's happening in the business, because they should translate if that's what we're saying.

So we start that in Q1, we start that pretty early on, and we say, "This is the expectation."

From there, we actually have more conversations and quarterly check-ins on are we reaching that? Yep. That starts to make their grading rubric very easy, right? We're not negotiating at the end of the day, you have your expectations and did that investment deliver on that?

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So it's more business outcomes versus just only looking at media outcomes?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Correct. We're a part of a bigger organization, and sometimes you can operate in silos, and what we chose to do is saying, "How do we start to translate that into what the business is talking about?" When we're going to our merchandising organization, we're no longer saying, "Oh, I drove X amount of buyers," and that's not translating to their day-to-day performance.

It should be connected, and it's trying to... At least we're trying to have the holistic conversation of what did the media contribute to that output?

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah. There's so many data points that we use. It's not just one or another. It's

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: not one or the other.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: How do we connect all these different in- pieces of information that we have to say, is it working or not?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Yes.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So you've talked about merchant priorities. There's so many cooks in the kitchen. There's so many different teams that touch retail media, from the brand teams, to the sales teams, to the agency, to the analytics teams. So there's all these people that are impacted by retail media with a key one being merchants.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So w- with finding alignment on merchant priorities, what do you mean by that, and how do you look at managing the, and maneuvering around the merchant relationship?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Yeah. I'll say every merchant is different in how they engage with their RMN, right? And so it's a level of education awareness that we start to have.

Oftentimes when we're talking with the merchants or our sales team or our trade teams are talking with the merchants, it's very how is it distribution focused. Now we've started to integrate the conversation of we're investing in your media, we want to drive your business, and what are your KPIs to do that, right?

What we found, I'll give an example to the audience, is- Our merchant, for example, wanted to create day parts, bring in new buyers. How do we do that within the yogurt segment? For us, we said, "Okay." But when we went back and look at the performance that we had in the past year, we had great return on ad spend, as everybody would know, but we were saturating our base buyers.

We were just targeting existing users, and we were like, "Ah, okay RMN, you built me a plan that looks great, but it's not even achieving the merchant priorities." So what we've also started to do is to educate the merchants. So we say, "This is our investment. This is also the commitment that we're asking of the RMN as we think about performance," right?

We are grateful for the distribution. We love it, but we want to also have the accountability on both sides when we're talking with the RMNs- ... because this creates a holistic conversation of how are we driving the business forward holistically- ... from a media side, from a sales side, from a promo side, because they all should be working together.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yep. It all ladders up into the same customer and the same

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: brand. Same customer, same goals. We all- Same goals ... truly have the same goals- Yeah ... to drive the business forward.

Are we doing that efficiently? Are we doing that effectively? That's where we have to make sure we have the alignment.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah. I think the same goals and the sameness is so important to emphasize where negotiation has such an implication of us versus them.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Sometimes.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: It does have an implication. It can feel

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: like that

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: sometimes.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: But it should be a win-win for all.

I think I wanna go back, too, because you mentioned a lot of cooks in the kitchen, right?

Yes. How do we think about integrating agencies into that conversation? We've really leaned a lot on craft and commerce as we thought about how do we go and approach our JBPs. And so I would love for you to give the audience some insights on how we- Yeah ... incorporated that.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So as a agency for Lifer so far I've done a lot of supporting JBP negotiations, and every time you tap an agency, it's gonna be a little bit different depending on what your business needs are, what your relationship is with them.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: But the biggest area where agencies or media buying teams, if you're in-house, can help is they're the ones who are typically executing a lot of the JBP benefits. So they're gonna be the ones who are more boots on the ground and can tell you, "Hey we actually need to have the CPM lower on CTV, not a CPM decrease on something- Social

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: on social." Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that's one area, and then also around the analytics, they can tell you what res- or what analytics were actually useful, what studies were useful. Are there studies that they want more of? Are there studies they want less of? So I think that's a really key area, and for some businesses it's gonna be different.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So one brand might really benefit from that extra analytics that the retailers can provide- And another brand might have a really robust in-house measurement capability, and that reporting might not be helpful at all. So that's a big way that agencies can help, is saying, "How do you prioritize the different benefits that are available to you, and where might you be able to do some trade-off?"

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Yeah. I wanna dial into that because when you talk about whether it's reporting or whether it's gonna be rate efficiency- ... that can vary by what's needed for the brand, right? Yeah. If I'm newer to the conversations with RMNs, maybe I do want a lot more of that reporting. What I would say is don't be afraid to challenge what they're saying you're getting for your benefits, right?

Yeah. It's your benefits as a JBP. If it doesn't benefit you as an organization to get more reporting, then we need to have the conversation about what does benefit me as an organization- Yeah ... and as a brand, because rates are always important, but there's other elements that's unique to you as a brand.

It shouldn't be a one size fit all- ... type of package.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yep, and that's the whole point of JOINT. Yeah. It's to help everybody.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Yeah.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Closing out on the agency re- piece of things, there's also the relationship aspect of it, too, that I don't wanna skip over, where also going back to cooks in the kitchen your a- agency or media buying partners h- also have relationships with your RMN partners.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: So they might be able to help you maneuver some of the conversations that might need to happen. Maybe it's like a, just like a, "Hey" amongst friends. Or maybe it's a good cop, bad cop. I don't know. Yeah. But negotiations, they have so many factors in them that you can ha- introduce different players according to what you wanna do.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah. So now let's get to what's on everyone's mind. Once the foundation is led, how do we actually approach these negotiations?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: When we get to Q3 and Q4?

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: When we get to Q3 and Q4 and our lovely holiday br- And our

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: holiday, yeah ... rush. I always break the ice with my RMN, and I say, "You're not going into my Christmas break, so we're gonna wrap this up pretty quickly."

But I also tell them "Don't bring me a number that's gonna offend me." 'cause I'm not gonna start the conversation, right? And so it creates that respect factor upfront for both sides. Sometimes, especially when they're not used to what you're looking for, this goes back to the conversations that we're having quarterly, that we're having at the beginning of the year, the expectations and the stretch goals that we're expecting from the RMN is already set.

So I'm not negotiating expectations with you, right? Yeah. This is not, did we move the needle and did we change our goals? Because the expectation is the expectation, and did we deliver on that? So when I start my conversations with my RMN, I say, "Let's pull out, let's pull out our rubric. Let's pull out our grading book."

Like, how did we perform, and be honest about that. And that's not just our sales lift report. That's an element of it, right? The incrementality that we get, but it's also the conversations of what happened in the business. Did we deliver on what we were expecting to do for that brand, for the holistic company?

Because the accountability now happens both ways. Yeah. I think there's a level of accountability that we have to have, and so when we get to that conversation, it's not hard to have- ... 'cause they can know if something rated red, did we reach it or not? That's a really simple question. Yep. And then that has the conversations around maybe that creates opportunity to say, "We can grow, but that needs to be some growth-" optionality, right? It needs to be contingent upon X, Y, and Z. It is not impossible, I will tell you guys that, to say- ... it needs to be contingent upon X, Y, and Z. Yeah. But then also we go back to, okay, I'm gonna grow with you. Yeah. This is the next year's expectation. Because sometimes it does deliver, right?

Yeah. We've seen where we've over-delivered, we've changed our strategy, we optimize, they've leaned in. I think this also builds a level of our partner manager understanding the business and the sales side of it, not just what they want to sell to us- ... but how are you approaching me and your reporting?

How are you talking about the data that you're seeing in Sentilla, because you should be looking at my business the same way.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yep.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Because the investment is not tied to just incremental growth- ... it's tied to business performance.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yep.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Which we all are used to that, right? We all want that happy bonus at the end of the year.

And so you talk about all of that and that goes into, and that starts having conversations with your brand teams- ... your CFO, as we think about how is it driving the bottom line. And now I'm having different conversations because I can actually speak to that. I can talk about, yes, this drove a level of profitability.

We have built some tools internally, but when I'm thinking about the goals of incrementality that I've given to my RMN, that starts to just naturally drive the business. And yes, there may be some disappointment if I say you see why we're not growing?" But that means they have the expectation, the standard, and the standard does not change.

That's where we're going with the business.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah. So you're basically setting the bottom line so that way it even helps with the salesperson 'cause they know- Yeah ... what you're gonna ask for, so- Yes ... they can already have that prepared so it's not- And

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: their narrative has to fit it, right? When they're pitching opportunities to us or they're bringing things to us- is no longer just, it's gonna drive ROAS, it's gonna do this.

How? How is it playing a part into the bigger picture, right? You may want me to test new capabilities. How is that gonna change the performance output that we're achieving together, and are you willing to digest that and understand that it's changing the grading rubric? But it should always go back to what is the expectation, how that ties to driving the overall business.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yep. Awesome. So I know we all cringe when we think back on our first time navigating the JVP process. What's one piece of advice that you would give past you?

Audience: I don't know. She's pretty great. I'm just ki- She's pretty great. I'm gonna clap for

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: that. No I think what I would tell myself is, right when you're approaching a JVP, y- your heart starts to race, you get the anxiety, like- Yeah

what number's gonna be on the table? How am I gonna manage that? We're both people on the end of the day, right? They're human, we're human, we're all here to do a job. I start to tell myself at the end of the day, I'm here to be an advocate for the business. Yeah. I always tell my team, and I tell my agency team, I tell my direct reports, "You are meant to be a steward of the business.

If this was your money, how would you manage that?" And I ask the same question back to my RM-ed. "If you did not deliver on it, would you give yourself another million dollars?"

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Right?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: No. No, you probably would not. And so I would tell myself be calm about it. Yeah. Be factual about it. Numbers don't lie.

Yeah. Go back to the data, understand the data, understand the business. That way you're having conversations just like your sales team- ... just like your finance team- Yeah ... and you're not just a shiny object that's a plus one at the end of the conversation, right? You are actually a functional expert at the table, and they start to respect that a lot more, what we do.

Yeah. But there's a lot that we do in commerce media that, that's not always understanding the other organization. I always tell my sales team "You understand a rollback, you understand a price and promotion. It may not always be that even in retail media- Yeah ... but let me educate you, because you should have some foundational knowledge of how that works."

But that's what I would tell myself. Be a steward of the business- ... be informed, have the conversations up front and set the expectation early.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah. Yeah, the communication piece is just so through line of all of it, is making sure that you're having those conversations, making sure everybody knows what's going on, and that also helps whenever there is a little bit of tension, 'cause you can be like, "All right, everybody knows what's going on, so-"

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: What's the North Star?

Are we-

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: we don't need to panic ...

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: on the right path or not?

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: We don't even- Yeah ... we, everybody knows what's going on, so we can just continue and address more level-headed- Yeah ... when things come up. Awesome. So I, we actually have four minutes left, and I'm trying to think where-

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: We can open the floor if anyone

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: has

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: questions.

We want to?

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: We can. Okay. So I'll close up the-

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Yeah ...

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: just real quick, and then we'll open. Yeah, four

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: minutes.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Just so the through line in all of this is communication, expectation setting, and then real partnership with the RMN. So it's making sure that everybody knows what's going on, making sure that you're working together, and it's really going back to the earlier statement.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: It's everybody w- can win. Yeah. It's not an us versus them.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: It's a how do we all get something that works for everybody. Yeah. But they need to know what to ask for s- starting out and what they're being held against. Yeah. So like a reframe from joint business planning to just better partnership.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: It can be phrased that way.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah.

Audience: I'll ask a question.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah.

Audience: Both of you, what's the longest you've ever seen a JBP negotiation take? Oh my gosh.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: I think eight months.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Oh.

Audience: Okay. I have... That's a record right there.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: So

Audience: how far into the eight months, how far into the year were you by the time it was finally done?

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Eight months.

Audience: Yeah, so-

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Oh, it, so it would've been like six months in. Yeah. But and they're never, the benefits aren't retroactive. Yeah. So we finally got it signed halfway through the year. It made it easier. But you lost a lot of, you lost a lot of the- You lost a lot of savings. Yeah. It meant that the next year the negotiations were a lot easier because we had all the legal figured out and everything.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: But yeah, the eight months was the longest.

Audience: Just four for me.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: So it went two months into the year, but it was done. Yeah. Eight months is- Shanterra runs a

Audience: tight program. I

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: do. I run a tight ship, but it delivers. The results are there. Yeah. You can't argue results. Got

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: another question over here. Okay. Hi. For the retailer that you said the results, they were targeting shoppers who were going to purchase Chobani at that retailer anyway- how did you start to work with them to reach new consumers? Did you have to do offsite retail media? Like, how did you address that?

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: We... Oh I will let Liv add some commentary. She- Yeah ... go ahead.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: I will say we just restructured- Re- recalled everything ... everything. We recreated the wheel.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: We... Yeah.

Everything had to start from the ground up. But to your question, it started from the audiences, right? Before we started looking at how we're shifting the pie between tactics of onsite, offsite, we wanted to understand the audiences and what they were driving. Yep. And then we did have conversations around where are we oversaturating.

So what we started to do was we started to test the thresholds. We realized that we were over-investing in display. So we brought it all the way down. Let's go back to the bottom and then figure out the right threshold, and then we can start doing everything else. But really, we're almost about a 60/40 custom audiences as we think about- I think it's-

the level of granularity that we go to- Yeah ... with our targeting.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah, and it also was setting the audience and the tactic to what the business goal was. So we have certain segments that were very specifically targeted at bringing in new buyers. Yeah. And some that were focused on reactivating, some that were focused on just driving units.

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah. But it wasn't just, Like one, before it was mostly just focused on brand buyers. Yeah. And then even on the onsite platforms, understanding what types of targeting and stuff are available to you onsite can also give you a direction of who you're gonna be reaching there. So like with Chobani contextual coffee, that's a- Yeah

Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: it's a, an expansion area for Creamer, or it's also an indicator of breakfast. So looking at where there were other aisles online that we could take advantage- Yeah ... of to try to bring in new buyers.

Audience: But start with your audiences first.

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah, audiences first.

Audience: Yeah. But- Thank you ...

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: but I think that gets us close to our time, but we appreciate everyone.

We definitely-

Moderator: Olivia Giaimo, AVP, Omni Media, Craft & Commerce: Yeah, no ... enjoyed the segment. So- Thank you so much for being here ... thank you. Yeah.

Shanteria Jones, Director, Shopper Marketing, Chobani: Thank

you, Shanteria. Thank you.