Most MDF budgets get spent on the wrong things — not because brands are careless, but because nobody on the brand side has actually sat where the money gets judged. Having owned the retail side of that decision, here are the three mistakes I saw repeated most often.
Funding activity, not outcomes
Brands would commit MDF to “a promotion” or “a placement” without a clear commercial target attached — no ASP lift, no incremental unit target, no margin protection threshold. Retailers judge MDF against commercial outcomes, not activity. If the ask isn’t tied to a number, it gets deprioritised the moment budgets tighten.
Treating retail media and MDF as separate pots
The best-performing brands aligned trade marketing funding with retail media spend into one coordinated plan — timed together, measured together. The ones who kept them in separate spreadsheets, run by separate teams, consistently underperformed and over-spent for the same result.
Not asking how it gets measured
Every retailer measures MDF differently — some prioritise sell-through, some margin contribution, some category share shift. Brands who asked that question upfront, and built their pitch around the retailer’s actual scorecard, got funded faster and renewed more often than brands pitching a generic “brand awareness” case.
The pattern across all three: brands pitching MDF as a marketing spend, when retailers are evaluating it as a commercial investment. Close that gap and the conversation changes entirely.
Not sure your MDF and retail media spend is earning its keep?
Steven Woodgate, Founder, Emmer Green — former Head of Category (Technology), John Lewis & Partners; former senior commercial leadership roles at Samsung, Dell Technologies and Microsoft.
Leave a comment