From Trade to Retail Media: Why Mediar Is Already Ahead of the Curve
In a recent edition of the Retail Media Leapfrog Series, Drew Cashmore shared a powerful reflection on the evolution from Trade Marketing to Retail Media, and what it means for retailers today. His analysis captures the moment perfectly: by 2030, more than $80 billion in Trade budgets are expected to shift into Retail Media.
The implications are massive. Trade, once the foundation of price competitiveness, is being redefined as retailers and brands look for measurable growth, not just margin protection.
Trade: The Defensive Engine
Trade has always been the defensive layer in retail, funding price, ensuring distribution, and securing shelf space. It asks:
“What will you give me for access?”
At Mediar, this has been our starting point. We’ve built tools to measure and optimize Trade investments in-store, identifying which promotions, displays, and activations actually drive shopper engagement and conversion.
This means we already bring transparency and performance accountability to a space that, for decades, was driven purely by negotiation.
Retail Media: The Offensive Engine
Retail Media flips the model. It asks:
“What will you give me for growth?”
It’s no longer about protecting price; it’s about monetizing attention, data, and influence, turning stores and screens into measurable growth channels.
As Drew notes, this isn’t a binary shift. Retailers who treat Retail Media as “Trade 2.0”, just another fee for access, will lose. Those who build mutually beneficial ecosystems with suppliers will win.
And that’s where Mediar’s evolution comes in. The same in-store visibility and conversion data that we use to measure Trade performance also powers Retail Media attribution, proving which campaigns and activations drive incremental category growth.
Mediar: The Bridge Between Trade and Retail Media
Function Comparison: Trade Marketing vs. Retail Media vs. Mediar’s Role
Core Goal
- Trade Marketing: Protect price and margin
- Retail Media: Drive measurable growth
- Mediar’s Role: Connect both worlds through unified measurement
Mindset
- Trade Marketing: Defensive
- Retail Media: Offensive
- Mediar’s Role: Integrative
Primary Value
- Trade Marketing: Access to shelf and pricing
- Retail Media: Access to shopper attention and data
- Mediar’s Role: Provide holistic visibility and performance proof
Key Metric
- Trade Marketing: Sell-through, ROI on spend
- Retail Media: ROAS, attention, incrementality
- Mediar’s Role: Deliver unified attribution and category-level insight
We’re not replacing Trade, we’re reimagining it. Our mission is to bridge commercial and media intelligence, helping retailers understand how every Trade dollar and Retail Media impression contributes to total retail performance, from shelf to sale to loyalty.
The Opportunity Ahead
If Trade built the foundation for price leadership, Retail Media is building the future of growth leadership. But one cannot exist without the other. Every dollar that moves from Trade to Retail Media must still earn its place in the value equation, protecting price competitiveness while driving measurable sales outcomes.
This is exactly what Mediar was designed for:
- To make Trade transparent and accountable.
- To make Retail Media measurable and incremental.
- And to unify both through a single data language that drives category growth and supplier trust.
That’s the leapfrog moment Drew describes, and it’s where we’re already operating.
In Short
Trade is what drives value today. Retail Media is what drives growth tomorrow. Mediar is the bridge, the connective layer that turns both into measurable, mutually profitable systems of growth.
