Michaela Mora and Tina Berres Filipski

It was the best of times for some, it was the worst of times for others. Then again, maybe that’s too extreme on both ends of the spectrum. While there were both huge gains and lackluster sales among industry companies in 2015, in general it was a year of average positive growth for promotional product distributors. It was also a year in which the gap between small and large distributors widened enough to change the balance between both groups in the total sales volume figures for the industry. Overall, 2015 was the year of the large distributor.

Through the decades, promotional products have been proven again and again as one of the most highly effective advertising media for promoting a brand and influencing behavior. Some of the most interesting data to support the claim dates back to 1992—the result of an intercept study of air travelers at New York’s LaGuardia airport, where travelers pulled out logoed pens and key rings from their pockets and purses, and recalled stories about how they obtained them. These were extraordinary findings that since have been reconfirmed a number of times in similar studies—most recently with a follow-up intercept airport study in 2012.