The term trade marketing is very common among the consumable industries, and its application happens by a department allocated between the marketing and sales areas. However, among companies there is not such cohesion in the understanding of such concept or in the used practices, and these are the reasons for the development of this study. The absence of uniformity of concept, and the shortage of theoretical reference on the subject justify the choice of the methodology of study of multiple cases. To this end, four companies of consumables were chosen which have already been adopting the concept for over three years, and with distribution of their products throughout the Brazilian territory. The research suggest some propositions which shall be confirmed in future studies, such as: the trade marketing concept is evolving towards a more strategic position; part of the functions performed by the trade marketing department starts to migrate to other areas of commercial support; and the actual trade marketing term is being replaced with new nomenclatures.