Glossary

Merchants' Association / Marketing Fund

Also known as: Marketing fund contribution, Promotional fund

A shopping center fund, financed through mandatory tenant contributions separate from CAM, dedicated to center-wide marketing, promotions, and special events intended to drive aggregate customer traffic.

Unlike CAM, which recovers physical operating costs, a merchants' association or marketing fund contribution is priced and justified purely on its traffic-generation return, and its governance varies widely: some centers operate a tenant-controlled merchants' association that votes on how funds are spent, while others simply require a fixed or GLA-proportional contribution to a landlord-controlled marketing fund with little or no tenant input. Anchor tenants frequently negotiate reduced marketing fund contributions or outright exemption on the theory that their own national advertising already drives the traffic the fund is meant to generate for everyone else, which shifts a larger share of the fund's cost onto in-line tenants and is a recurring point of tension when a center's marketing spend is perceived as ineffective.