Key Takeaways
• Promo industry confidence tracks more closely to consumer sentiment than stock market performance.
• Industry sales are lagging behind the rate of inflation since 2019.
• How long it takes suppliers to get paid serves as a surprising economic indicator.
• Business investment spending has grown much faster than promo sales since 2011.
‘As Wall Street Goes, So Goes Main Street’
There’s perhaps no greater visible measure of the health of the American economy than the stock market. When stock prices soar, things are good and brighter days await businesses everywhere. Or so the thinking goes…
But what about the promo industry? How much is it influenced by the stock market and consumer behavior? We tested that idea by comparing the Counselor Confidence Index, which has tracked industry sentiment since 2001, against two widely followed gauges of the U.S. economy: the S&P 500 (a stock market index of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S.) and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. (To make the trends directly comparable, the Counselor and Michigan data were indexed to a common baseline of 100 in 2001.) Here’s what we discovered.
Read this full article here, and catch up on all of the stories from the Counselor 2026 State of the Industry.
