Arbitron & VNU To Deploy Pilot Panel For ‘Project Apollo’ Marketing Research Service.

Arbitron Inc. and VNU announced that they have agreed to deploy, by year end 2005, a pilot panel of more than 6,000 households as a demonstration of the ‘Project Apollo’ national marketing research service which would collect multi-media and purchase information from a common sample of consumers.

The pilot panel will be designed to show advertisers how ‘Project Apollo’ would enable a better understanding of the link between consumer exposure to advertising on multiple media and their shopping/purchase behavior. The pilot panel will be designed to give advertisers the ability to estimate and quantify the top line revenue growth that could be achieved using Project Apollo. The pilot will also showcase the enhanced ability of the ‘single-source’ marketing research service to measure the return on investment for marketing efforts.

“This agreement reflects the continuing progress that our two companies have been making since October 2004 toward developing and deploying an innovative national marketing research service based on a portfolio of technologies and other resources from multiple companies,” said Susan Whiting, president and chief executive officer of Nielsen Media Research, and executive vice president of VNU’s Media Measurement & Information Group. ”We are looking to this pilot to demonstrate to advertisers the superior return on media investments that Project Apollo would make possible.”

Said Steve Morris, president and chief executive officer, Arbitron Inc., “Beginning in January 2006, the Project Apollo pilot panel will provide advertisers what they have been asking our two companies for: a means to magnify the effectiveness of their marketing efforts as well as a way to quantify the improved return on investment that Project Apollo can make possible. Through the pilot panel, marketers will be able to see that the behavioral-based marketing targets Project Apollo can devise would be substantially different and yield better decisions than what they are using today.”

About the Project Apollo Pilot Panel

The pilot panel for the national marketing research service will consist of approximately 14,500 participants in 6,250 households, providing, for the first time, multi-media exposure and purchase information from a common sample of consumers.

These individuals will be incented to voluntarily carry Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM), a small, cell phone-sized device that collects the volunteers’ exposure to electronic media sources: broadcast television networks, cable networks, and network radio as well as audio-based commercials broadcast on these outlets and on additional media. Consumer exposure to other media such as newspapers, magazines and circulars would also be collected through additional survey instruments.

Data on consumer preference and purchases for a wide range of services and products would also be collected from panelists, via ACNielsen’s Homescan technology, which tracks packaged goods purchases and by means of additional surveys, both conventional and electronic. Data would be collected in aggregate form to provide a holistic understanding of participants’ media interactions and their resulting shopping and purchase behavior.

Both Arbitron and VNU emphasized that the service announced would be separate, distinct and designed very differently from any service for TV and radio ratings.