ACNielsen Announces Comprehensive Retail Coverage Solution for The U.S. CPG Industry; Initial Release of All-Channel Coverage Product Available Now.

Business Editors

BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 14, 2004

Responding to widespread changes in consumer shopping patterns, ACNielsen U.S. today announced a comprehensive retail measurement solution that offers significantly enhanced coverage of the complex U.S. consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketplace. ACNielsen U.S. is an operating unit of ACNielsen, a VNU business.

The announcement was made here during the annual Consumer 360 conference hosted by ACNielsen, Spectra, and other businesses of the VNU Marketing Information Group.

In development for more than a year, tested in the marketplace and available now, the initial release of ACNielsen's innovative solution gives clients their first source of actionable insights based on a complete view of consumer purchasing in both traditional and emerging retail channels. The solution integrates information from a variety of sources to provide accurate, decision-ready reporting and coverage of a broad array of retail channels, including food, drug, mass merchandise, convenience, dollar, pet, home-improvement, warehouse-club, and toy stores, as well as Wal-Mart.

Alice Fawver, senior vice president, Retail Measurement Services, ACNielsen U.S. Marketing, said, "The remarkable diversity of today's retail universe is one of our clients' most difficult marketing challenges. In a marketplace where consumers can find the same product in many different outlets, complete retail coverage is essential to help manufacturers develop the right marketing and sales programs, and to help retailers understand their competitive positions. Accurately measuring this highly complex environment is a difficult challenge, but we're satisfied that, after careful testing, we have developed the right solution."

ACNielsen's first-stage comprehensive retail coverage service employs a new modeling process to integrate information from three sources:

-- Retail measurement information, gathered at the point of sale,

principally from the flagship ACNielsen Scantrack(R) service.

-- Consumer purchasing information gathered in the home through

the industry-leading ACNielsen Homescan(R) consumer panel

service.

-- Shipment and other data provided by consumer-product

manufacturers.

ACNielsen is already developing enhancements to the new solution that will add information from food-service and vending outlets. The depth and richness of the consumer purchasing information also will be substantially enhanced as ACNielsen rolls out its previously announced expansion of its Homescan panel.

"We have been moving aggressively over the past year on this solution," Fawver said, "but at the same time we're taking care to ensure the new information we deliver to clients is accurate and meaningful. Our solution, which is driven by a breakthrough approach to data synthesis, meets our high standards of accuracy and quality in market measurement."

The importance of tracking sales in all retail channels can be seen in the disposable diapers category (see chart below). If retail measurement was limited to the grocery, drug, and mass merchandise channels, less than two-thirds of category sales would be represented.

Retail Channel         $ Sales      Change Vs. Year Ago Share of Total
                                                         Retail Sales
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Food/Drug/Mass     $46,021,962,853          -7.1%           61%
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wal-Mart           $22,888,718,345           1.1%           30%
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Club                $5,617,051,428          18.8%            7%
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dollar                $624,553,101          31.9%            1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Toy                   $537,117,337           4.1%            1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: ACNielsen, 52 weeks ending 2/21/04

ACNielsen, a VNU business, is the world's leading marketing information provider. Offering services in more than 100 countries, the unit provides measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics and consumer attitudes and behavior. Clients rely on ACNielsen's market research, proprietary products, analytical tools and professional service to understand competitive performance, to uncover new opportunities and to raise the profitability of their marketing and sales campaigns.

Note to Editors: Look for this press release and other ACNielsen news on the Internet at http://acnielsen.com/news.