Consumer brandslose marginbetween budgets.
Agency fees, media, retail media and trade spend sit in different budgets with different owners. We review them together, because that is where the overlap and the overpayment hide.
Where it goes wrong.
Brand teams own the agencies. Sales owns trade spend. E-commerce owns retail media. Each budget is managed well on its own terms, and nobody sees the total paid to reach the same shopper.
We have run agency consolidations, US media agency searches and media audits for consumer brands, and the pattern repeats: the money is in the gaps between owners.
Agency roster and fees
More agencies than the brand needs, each with its own overhead.
Media supply chain
Platform fees, principal media and the layers between the budget and the ad.
Retail media networks
Spend that sits between trade and media, with weaker reporting than either.
Production and content
Asset volumes rising with every channel, rarely benchmarked.
Trade and promotion governance
Deductions and promotions that nobody reconciles to results.
Martech and data
Overlapping tools and data contracts across brand, sales and e-commerce.
How we help
The same approach as every engagement: a free call, a Second Opinion or a Diagnostic to size it, then the work run to the P&L.
One global commerce partner, on a 13-week plan.
A global consumer products company ran eCommerce and retail media through multiple agencies and technology vendors across regions. It wanted one global technology partner with regional depth.
A $40M to $50M media account, run to a 12-week calendar.
A global consumer products company, with brands aimed at children and the adults who buy for them, needed a US media agency for its full planning and buying mandate.
Where consumer brands leak margin: agencies and trade spend
Agency rosters and trade spend sprawl for the same reason: many markets, many contracts, and nobody assigned to compare them. The fix is knowing what you pay for the same thing everywhere.
MLR review is a cost nobody benchmarks
MLR review exists for good reason. But the rounds it adds, and the workflow around it, rarely get priced or benchmarked like any other marketing cost of that size.
Retail media is the new programmatic. Same margin, new name.
Retail media is the fastest-growing line in many consumer budgets and the least governed. A decade of programmatic lessons applies directly.
Straight answers.
Do you work on trade spend as well as media?
We review trade and retail media governance alongside media and agencies, because the budgets overlap. Deep trade promotion optimization is a specialist field and we bring in partners for it.
Can you run a media agency search for a consumer brand?
Yes. Agency search and consolidation for consumer brands is a large part of our marketing work.
Tell us about the business.
Fifteen minutes. We will tell you where we would look first in a business like yours.