CANNES — CVS Media Exchange (CMX) is marking its fifth anniversary this August by expanding beyond traditional retail media placements through a new collaboration with Reddit.
CMX allows brands and advertisers to place their products within CVS Pharmacy’s digital touchpoints, includes online channels, such as CVS.com, and in-store digital media.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Kristen DiCorleto, head of marketing at the company, explained CMX’s latest tie-up and its outlook in retail media.
Reddit’s media prescription
At Cannes Lions, CMX announced a new partnership with Reddit that will allow its advertisers to reach Reddit users. The partnership intends to pair CVS’s first-party shopper data with the social platform’s contextual community data, aiming to reach consumers within relevant conversations.
The collaboration involves a clean room and aims to leverage CVS’s database of over 90 million ExtraCare members to create targeted advertising opportunities within Reddit’s community discussions, representing the continued expansion of retail media outside of retailers’ own core properties.
“We are using their amazing platform to connect our ExtraCare data with their Reddit data from their Redditors on their platform,” DiCorleto said.
The goal, she added, is “making sure that we’re able to serve up contextually relevant, creative ads, and ultimately content to their Redditors from our advertiser partners.”
Looking back to look forward
The U.S. retail media market is projected to reach over $62 billion in 2025, but differentiation relies on turning vast customer information into a predictive tool, not just a reflective one.
DiCorleto said CMX’s constant from the start has been its relationship with its CPG advertisers, who saw the potential in its trove of first-party data.
Now CMX wants to help those advertisers predict demand, not just reflect on it, with a new campaign, “It’s not guessing, it’s data.” The approach, DiCorleto explained, ensures that campaigns are built on and measured against the actual shopping behavior of verified customers.
“Whether it’s looking at those 90 million addressable ExtraCare members at the beginning of the media plan that we’re developing in partnership with our CPG advertisers or the data that we’re delivering back to those advertisers throughout the campaign,” DiCorleto said, “we really use those transactions in the best possible way to create that amazing customer experience and deliver those personalized messages.”
Building new communities and standards
This move comes as advertisers are increasingly demanding standardized metrics and transparent measurement across the burgeoning retail media landscape.
DiCorleto noted that CMX was the first health and wellness retail media network to comply with IAB standards for the space, a step toward providing greater transparency.
“The biggest thing for any retail media network is to truly understand what is the best experience for your customers and to build a program that meets the needs of those customers who are most loyal to your business,” she said. “Get that data set in a really great place so that you have that base infrastructure to then springboard off of.”
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