Promotional products are only one component of an even larger consumer and trade promotion industry, which periodically vies with conventional advertising for share of marketing budgets. Based on ASI's new data, promotional product spending in the U.S. is now greater than cable TV ad spending, is twice as large as Internet display advertising and five times greater than outdoor advertising outlays. That comparison was drawn with TNS Media Intelligence's most recent 2005 ad spending estimates for those fast-growing media.
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According to ASI, 2005 was the second consecutive year of record ad spending by promotional products marketers, and the third year of growth since the sector ebbed in 2002, following an overall marketing recession in 2001.