December 1999

In s i g h t s t o d a y f o r t o m o r rows d e c i s i o n s

CPG in Cyberspace
A World of Opportunity
Improving Category Management Practices Trend Watch: Natural Products

Profiting more by

CONSUMER INSIGHT:

knowing more.

For More Information

150 North Martingale Road Schaumburg, IL 60173 800.988.4ACN World Wide Web site: http://acnielsen.com/ci

December 1999, Volume 1, No. 4

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A Century of Change Looking back over the past few years, ACNielsen has lead industry change in new technologies and software, allowing a better understanding of consumers.

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Cover Story CPG in CyberspaceA World of Opportunity Technology has made it possible to capture more information about markets and consumers than ever before, and consumers today have wider choices and greater freedoms. This represents a world of opportunity for the packaged goods industry.

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Improving Category Management Practices In 1999, Brand Marketing and Supermarket News identified General Mills and Wegmans as Category Masters of the Year for excellence in category management. Both companies discuss their opinions on what it takes to be successful in category management today.

In every issue
12 Trend Watch Natural Products

Business Tools
13 Merchandising 14-15 Retail Tracking 16 Decision Support Services 17 Consumer Behavior
Volume 1, No. 4 Publisher ACNielsen Editors Mark Chesney Art Massa Contributing Writers Michael P. Connors Vice Chairman, ACNielsen Lohr Le Sueur Vice President of Strategic Planning Sales, Food Service, & Channel Development General Mills Dave DArezzo Director Grocery, Dairy Frozen and Bulk Foods Wegmans Food Markets Design & Layout Marina Quaranta Editorial Board Gary Binkoski Don Drews Kathy Mancini Elaine Noone Mark Puccetti ACNielsen Global Creative Services Laurel A. Kennedy Marketing/ Communications Slack Barshinger & Partners
Copyright 1999 ACNielsen. Printed in USA. All rights reserved. ACNielsen, the ACNielsen logo, ACNielsen Workstation InformationServer, Convenience Track, Homescan, ICE, INFACT, Scantrack and SPACEMAN are trademarks or registered trademarks of A.C. Nielsen Company or CZT/ACN Trademarks, L.L.C. Nielsen Media Research is a trademark or registered trademark of Nielsen Media Research, Inc. Microsoft, Visual Basic, the Visual Basic logo and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other brand, product or service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Consumer Insight

Steve Schmidt ACNielsen President, U.S.

A Century of Change

We have no higher priority than to continue to innovate with new product offerings that assist you in better understanding your markets.

eve come to the end of an era. Among other milestones, 1999 closes out a century of change. As I look back over the past few years here at ACNielsen, that change has been dramatic. One of the key drivers for the tremendous acceleration of progress has been the advance in technologyboth in terms of new technologies and software, and the significant insights we can now obtain through a better understanding of consumers. As our clients, you have sought easier access to the insights behind the multitude of data that impacts your business every day. We delivered those insights on time, every time. That in turn has lead to better decision-making and faster results for each of you at the point of sale. At ACNielsen, we are committed to an open technology strategy. We need to support mainframe, client/server, PC and Internet delivery of our products and services. We need to ensure as many clients create data warehouses using different operating systems such as Oracle, Red Brick or Informix that our data and applications all run flawlessly. The transformation of the market research industry has been no less dramatic. For the past three years, ACNielsen has been at the forefront of industry innovation. As a leading knowledge

company, we continue to push the envelope to develop and deliver high performance solutions to meet your business needs. Our global reach provides you with the confidence to expand your horizons. While we currently measure retail sales in four channels, were now exploring new channels at your request, including the Internet. While our Consumer Panel is the gold standard for the industry, we will enter the new millennium with a companion Hispanic Consumer Panelanother first of its kind. Retailers will benefit from our Analysis to Implementation strategy going forward, as we deliver retail data warehouse solutions that will take integration of information and insights to the next level. Rest assured that we have no higher priority than to continue to innovate with new product offerings that assist you in better understanding your markets. We will deliver on that commitment by embracing technological advances that assist you with turning knowledge into action. Im looking forward to helping you grow your business in the next century!

Cover Story

Consumer Insight

CPG in Cyberspace
A World of Opportunity
by Michael P. Connors Vice Chairman, ACNielsen

Consumer Insight

as there ever been a more promising time in consumer marketing?

Technology has made it possible to capture more information about markets and consumers than ever before, and use it more effectively to create profitable growth. We can analyze information faster and more thoroughly, develop richer insights and deeper knowledge, and put that knowledge to work in the form of more productive, more successful marketing and sales campaigns. And now we have the Internetan entirely new, tremendously exciting marketing opportunity. For consumers, the Internet means wider choices and greater freedom to find exactly what they want, where they want it and when they want it, at the price that fits their circumstances. For the consumer products industry, the Internet is a new medium for delivering advertising messages and promotions... A vast new distribution channel... A new method for improving communication and interaction among manufacturers and retailers... The first truly global marketplace... And the ultimate direct to consumer marketing tool. The numbers are staggering. Right now, there are more than 200 million users connected to cyberspace, with seven new users going online every second of every day. By 2003, there will be 13 billion distinct URLs on the Internet, where today there are one billion. The number of devices capable of accessing the Internet will rise to 700 million, from 150 million. The number of users buying goods and services on the Internet will grow from 31 million today to 180 million, and the total value of Internet sales will grow from $50 billion to $1.3 trillion. For marketers, the dramatic growth of the Internet and its inherently dynamic, fast-changing nature have created a huge and unruly frontiera cyberspace version of the wild, wild West of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its a frontier where opportunities and threats go hand-in-hand and the competitive landscape changes

For the consumer products industry, the Internet is a new medium for delivering advertising messages and promotions The first truly global marketplace And the ultimate direct to consumer marketing tool.

Cover Story
minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day. Its a new world that we are only beginning to understanda medium that we are just now learning to exploit and develop. What have we learned so far? We know that the Internet is highly individual and personal, immediate, interactive, open 24 hours a day and inherently global. We see that we can use it to deliver targeted messages and customized products and services, and to build closer relationships with consumers. We can make the Internet the electronic equivalent of the corner store, where the proprietor knew his or her customers and could anticipate and cater to their needs and preferences. This is a medium where the action takes place at lightning speed, where the distance between delivering a message or an incentive and making the sale has been reduced to a few clicks of a mouse. It gives us new opportunities to measure the effectiveness of advertising and promotions. Above all, it expands the boundaries of our traditional markets and creates dramatic growth opportunities.

Consumer Insight

Understanding Internet Sales

But there are many, many things we have yet to learn about the revolutionary qualities of the Internet. At this stage, we really know very little about the demographics of Internet consumers, their likes and dislikes about using the Internet and their usage patterns. We only have a partial understanding of what products and services theyll buy on the Internet, and what theyll continue to buy only from traditional outlets and channels. We need much more knowledge to understand when a sale on the Internet is truly incremental and when it cannibalizes existing business... To measure the interaction between the Internet and traditional media, how they complement each other, or how they conflict with each other... To evaluate the extent to which the

Consumer Insight

Internet will enhance or threaten the equity in existing brands and franchises that has been built up over decades of development... And to learn how to use the Internet as a product development opportunity. But at a very practical level, we dont yet have the information we need to make day-to-day decisions about how to use the Internet most effectivelythe fundamental audience and usage data that will help us place our advertising and promotional messages, set rates, compare results with other media and know where the competition is coming from and what theyre doing.

advertising decisions, negotiate rates and placements and evaluate competitive performance. But thats just a start. We also expect to provide information and insights that will help to answer the complex and challenging questions the Internet has raised and to fully develop the opportunities it has created. Its a short step from measuring Internet audiences and advertising to tracking Internet sales and electronic commerce. And we believe there will be tremendous benefits to be derived from linking Internet data to pointof-sale information from traditional outlets, advanced consumer panel research, test marketing data and other research sources. The Internet is still in its infancy as a commercial medium. As technologies converge and Internet linkage through telephones and televisions becomes commonplace, the communication and marketing opportunities can only continue to expand. This is, indeed, a new frontier. But unlike the physical frontiers that humankind has explored and developed in the past, the boundaries of the Internet are limited only by human imagination and creativity. Has there ever been a better opportunity?

ACNielsen eRatings.com
The answers to these questions are starting to flow. At ACNielsen, were launching a new business, ACNielsen eRatings.com, in a venture with NetRatings, Inc. Soon, a global Nielsen//NetRatings service, (already launched in the U.S. by NetRatings and Nielsen Media Research), will provide the first truly consistent, reliable measures of Internet audiences and advertising worldwide. ACNielsen eRatings.com represents an ideal marriage of capabilities. NetRatings has developed an elegant, unobtrusive, accurate and thorough system for capturing real-time information about consumer activity on the Internet. ACNielsen has unique global reach, a large international media research business and highly developed skills in building statistically valid consumer research panels. Together, ACNielsen and NetRatings will create a service that provides comprehensive global coverage of who is online, where theyre going, what ads theyre viewing and how much time they spend at each site they visit. Nielsen//NetRatings will provide the global currency that the consumer products industry needs to measure Internet audiences, make

Feature

Consumer Insight

Improving Category M
By Lohr Le Sueur Vice President of Strategic Planning Sales, Food Service, & Channel Development General Mills

In 1999, Brand Marketing and Supermarket News togeth category management. In ceremonies held at ACNielsen named Top Retailer. The following represents their opinio

A Manufacturer Perspective

eneral Mills began its focus on category management nearly a decade ago. A total organization commitment to the category management concept, along with a strong understanding of consumer behavior and a commitment to collaboration with our trading partners, have been the keys to our success. We are completely focused on increasing consumption in the categories we are in, and collaborating with our customers to drive real growth solutions. General Mills senior management was very involved in making the transition to a category management philosophy. We removed boundaries within our company, which allows our employees to work cross-functionally. Additionally, we have shifted to team coverage of accounts rather than geographic coverage. We have dedicated resources for category management in marketing, sales and the field sales organization across the country. General Mills has always built its strength in the food channel by understanding consumers. When the industry made the shift from relationship selling to fact-based objectivity, we embraced that change as a benefit. Mastery of consumer information is important in being able to manage objectively and deliver fact-

Consumer Insight

Management Practices
By Dave DArezzo Director Grocery, Dairy Frozen and Bulk Foods Wegmans Food Markets

her polled their readers to identify the Category Master of the Year for excellence in ns annual conference, General Mills was named Top Manufacturer and Wegmans was ons on what it takes to be successful in category management today.

A Retailer Perspective

he success that Wegmans has had with category management is due to many factors, but the most important is top management commitment. Commitment means more than words. Its resources, empowerment, and changes in support and systems. Danny Wegman pushed our senior management to focus on category management back in the early 90s. His leadership gave our management the permission we needed to focus on category management from a total company perspective. Through the decade, Danny Wegman has remained a singular driving voice for category management. Another important factor in our success has been the development of an organizational structure that motivates our people to work together. The organizational changes that Wegmans took to focus the company on category management went far beyond the creation of a category management department. At Wegmans, staffers often rotate among jobs so they can better understand their co-workers challenges and figure out better ways to benefit the total store. Interdepartmental turf battles that plague many chains and prevent execution of premier category management plans are non-existent at Wegmans.

Consumer Insight 10

Feature
A Manufacturer Perspective
Continued from page 8 It is not enough just to be good in the categories in based decisions. We want to be in the position to which you have product entries. You must know how explain the impact on the shopping basket and market these categories fit within the total store: whether the share of adding or deleting an item, or to explain why role of the product is a destination a core shopper would shift from purchase, occasional or routine image a grocer to a mass merchant. It does not matter whether maker or profit driver. We address Manufacturers that are truly into the retailer or manufacturer issues such as how main meals and category management use data to side dishes (Hamburger Helper, rice, foster changes that bring success. has better information; the pasta, or specialty potatoes) relate to power of the concept is in Collaboration is also a key element in other choices like frozen dinners. category management execution. It To make cereals more productive, sitting down across the does not matter whether the retailer we need to look at all the ways table and collaborating. or manufacturer has better informapeople eat breakfast. In flours tion; the power of the concept is in and desserts, we have to look at sitting down across the table and collaborating. By the entire baking aisle because consumers make challenging each other and discussing local market dietary tradeoffs. conditions, better results are produced than if decisions At General Mills, category management is not a static are forced down from headquarters. concept, but a constantly evolving method of doing One of the major category management issues is store-level business. As mentioned previously, information is an execution. If this does not happen, even the best category important component in the execution of category management plan will fall apart. Retailer motivation management and in the future of the concept. We believe and resources for category management vary widely. the next evolution of category management rests in a The challenge is to get the store-level execution done. keen understanding of how the whole store works and how we need to participate in total store management in Presenting your company as an objective trading partner supporting the revitalization of the center store. is another key to category management success. Our initial category management programs were in the cereal and yogurt categories. Rather than look at our brands, we felt we would benefit when good things happened for our categories. At that time we were the number two player in both categories. We believe that our objectivity has been a real strength in the growth of our business in these categories.

Consumer Insight 11

Continued from page 9

A Retailer Perspective

Category management has helped us focus on One example of an interdepartmental category managerewarding the most productive customers, rather than ment success at Wegmans is our Natures Marketplace every customer. We are reevaluating categories that department. This is a 5,000 square-foot section housing were previously loss-leaders and focusing on what our 20,000 stockkeeping units that is tailored by store. It is core customers want. For example in the high-cube, transparent to consumers that this boutique comprises low-margin paper goods category, we had every SKU dairy, frozen, health and beauty care, general known to manand we were losing merchandise, organic produce and money on it. We culled variety and more. Our managers broke down the Category management gave up share because we were silos and worked together to determine has helped us focus chasing bad volume, but we were how best to merchandise this section. able to keep profit in the business Natures Marketplace is category manon rewarding the without damaging customer loyalty. agement embodied on the selling floor. most productive Our activity-based costing scorecard Another important factor in Wegmans analysis played an important role customers, rather category management success is our in the revamp of this category. ability to use and understand inforthan every customer. If we did not get the buy-in, undermation. We have 14 people in our standing and cooperation from our store operations merchandising department whose sole responsibility people, the best category management plans would is to analyze and deliver market-basket analysis data. be failures. We have worked very hard to establish This resource helps us avoid the supermarket industrys relationships with divisional managers, store managers historic inability to capitalize on store data. Our and individual department heads to clarify our roles competency in this area is a key factor in enabling us and do what we do best. We have great trust between to merchandise more effectively. We capture data to the merchandising and operations. They give us good transaction level, including every purchase by every feedback; we listen to it and incorporate it into the customer, what they bought, when they bought it, and design of all our new plans. It may sound like a cliche, the make-up of their basket. You cannot over-estimate but ultimately the success of category management at the value of having a manager of merchandising and Wegmans comes down to people. information technology focused on experiencing these transactions in real time five days a week.

Consumer Insight 12

Hot Trends

Trend Watch
T
he market for natural productsitems like nutritional supplements, organic food, and eco-friendly household cleanerscontinues to grow at rates far outpacing mainstream category growth. What used to be a small niche business concentrated in health food stores has gone mainstream, with an increasing number of leading manufacturers and retailers capitalizing on the trend. According to recent information from ACNielsen and SPINS (ACNielsens natural products research and information partner), sales of natural products and nutritional supplements reached $5 billion in mainstream Food/Drug/Mass outlets in 1999. In total, these stores now represent fully 20% of the estimated $25 billion natural products sales in the U.S. Broad consumer demand is driving sales increases. According to SPINS/ACNielsen Natural Products Consumer Reports, which track purchasers using information from ACNielsens Homescan Consumer Panel, 27.3% of U.S. households

Natural Products
purchased natural foods in 1998. These households also tend to be attractive target consumers, with high educational levels and disposable income. Not surprisingly, many mainstream manufacturers have identified these growth trends and have responded by entering this lucrative and higher margin industry. Major consumer packaged goods have entered the natural products arena, either through new product introductions or acquisitions. One major cereal manufacturer recently entered the natural cereal marketplace with its first organic ready-to-eat cereal. Alternative retail formats have also benefited from this increased demand. Nationwide chain retailers such as Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets pioneered the natural products supermarket format, reaching out to both loyal natural products shoppers and crossover households. Both chains have aggressive expansion and acquisition programs in place as they capitalize on the growing appeal of natural. Food stores, drugstores and mass merchandisers are also riding this trend, significantly increasing merchandising of natural products. Categories such as energy bars, nondairy beverages, veggie burgers and frozen entrees are showing sales growth in excess of 25% a year, the result of vastly improved distribution and increased consumer awareness. Strategies for merchandising natural items vary, with some retailers creating store within a store formats to cluster natural products, and others integrating specific categories with like-kind mainstream categories. As consumers continue to seek natural and organic products, identification of key opportunities will be critical to achieving success in this dynamic marketplace. SPINS and ACNielsen offer a range of retail measurement and consumer information solutions to assist manufacturers and retailers in this process.

Business Tools
Build Custom Merchandising Solutions
Merchandising information management is a critical element in todays competitive environment. However, it is difficult to keep track of planograms to maintain consistency and utilize merchandising information to make strategic business decisions. Until now. ACNielsen Professional Services is the custom arm of our Merchandising Services group. Professional Services will design and construct a custom, enterprise-wide merchandising solution, designed to your exact specifications. Utilizing core ACNielsen components, your custom solution will allow you to integrate planogram, store, consumer and retail data to enable you to assemble merchandising information, plans, analyses and customized reports on a store-by-store basis in a single relational database. Such a solution is much more than a software systemit is a process designed to save you time and help you communicate the appropriate information to key personnel at any location. With years of experience in the design and implementation of merchandising information systems, our Professional Services organization is uniquely positioned to streamline your merchandising processes, allowing you more time to focus on strategic analysis. Some of the standard ACNielsen components available for use are: Relational database for planogram storage Planogram translation capabilities Merchandising rules and implementation Automated planogram maintenance Decision-support analysis, data querying and reporting Custom components will be designed and constructed to complement these standard components in order to meet your exact business requirements: Internet/Intranet-based planogram delivery Rules-based planogram retrieval and submittal, with user-access restrictions Automatic data integration Due to their unique nature, each custom solution is supported by our Professional Services staff. This will ensure that those most knowledgeable of your solution are able to respond to your needs.

for Merchandising

Consumer Insight 13

Call your ACNielsen representative to find out more about how a custom solution can help you manage, standardize, analyze and distribute merchandising data, giving you more time to focus on category management strategies. Or visit our web site at http://acnielsen.com/merchandising.

Custom Merchandising Solutions:

Save time by storing, updating and accessing all critical merchandising data from a single, relational database. Improve management of authorized planograms by assigning a status, user, store, date, category and other criteria to planograms. Save money by distributing planogram and report information electronically to the appropriate location via the Internet or Intranet. Get a better handle on your business and easily identify opportunities by performing comprehensive chain-wide, cross-category, cross-store and other merchandising analyses. Reduce planogram errors by standardizing merchandising information. Automate routine merchandising functions to provide more time to concentrate on developing effective category merchandising plans.

Incorporate These Easy-to-Use Features:

Store multiple planograms and related merchandising data in a single source. Create Project Templates, allowing you to assign a project name, category, version, effective dates, stores and more to planograms. Access approved planograms and related category merchandising reports anytime, from any location, via the Internet or Intranet. Access all of your merchandising information via standard reporting tools, such as Excel and Crystal Reports. Maintain compatibility with the entire family of SPACEMAN products and other space management systems. Link to ACNielsen INFACT Workstation, RWS, ICE and other critical information sources to make fact-based merchandising decisions.

See us on the Web

http://acnielsen.com/ci or call 1.800.988.4ACN

Consumer Insight 14

Business Tools
Understand Market-Level Dynamics in Baseline Measures
Trade promotion effectiveness is top-of-mind, especially now that the holidays are fast approaching... Did my stuffing brand get displayed in my key accounts? Was my competitors brand featured during key weeks? To assist you in making decisions on how to spend your promotion dollars, ACNielsen now offers the Scantrack Cross-Sectional Baselinea tool for evaluating trade promotions in seasonal and highly promoted categories. The Cross-Sectional Baseline is a relatively new capability designed to reflect market-level dynamics such as holidays, seasonality, couponing, advertising, and competitive activity. Incorporating market influences provides for a clean separation between trade promotions and market variables. This is particularly important in seasonal and heavily promoted categories where trade promotions are often coupled with coupon activity. The methodology also minimizes baseline changes that can occur with database updates producing a more timely, stable baseline (and incremental) volume estimate. How does it work? The Cross-Sectional Baseline, like the traditional baseline, uses non-promoted weeks within a store to estimate baseline sales for an item. Additionally, the Cross-Sectional Baseline looks across non-promoted stores in the market and adjusts the data accordingly. By bringing in observations from other non-promoted stores in the market, the Cross-Sectional capability incorporates market-wide effects (such as major holidays) and improves the overall baseline estimate. Enhanced promotion evaluation leads to more effective trade planning, seasonal product forecasting, and sound business decisions regarding couponing, advertising, new products and response to competitive activity. The Cross-Sectional Baseline can be easily applied to any database, and should coincide with your annual refresh to maintain data trends. For more information, please contact your ACNielsen representative.

for Retail Tracking

Account for the high growth in the Supercenter Channel
Historically, supercenters have been classified within the mass merchandiser channel. For food manufacturers, this classification created issues of channel misalignment when comparing food buying behavior, limited local measurement, and non-reporting of certain categories due to confidentiality concerns. There was no clear way to distinguish between traditional discount and supercenter mass stores. ACNielsen Super Scantrack changes that by combining supercenter formats into the grocery channel. By re-defining industry channel definitions, food department information is more accurately aligned with how the consumer shops, allowing ACNielsen clients to compete more successfully in the marketplace. Only ACNielsen offers Super Scantrack, providing: Better understanding of the true grocery buying environment, enhancing trade and consumer strategies and tactics Local understanding of this grocery buying environment for better targeting of consumer and trade promotions No more category restrictions; previously restricted categories will now have an increase in coverage of nearly 10%a large portion of their competitive environment Better understanding of the Traditional Discount Mass channel for better strategic and tactical execution toward this growing channel Talk with your ACNielsen representative to learn more about Super Scantrack.

Super Scantrack features:

Channel Alignment: Combined reporting of Grocery $2MM+ with Supercenters to easily report true consumer grocery choice/behavior Increased Local Coverage: Increased sampling rates for supercenters to allow local market reporting of Grocery with Supercenters (Supercenters now sampled at the Grocery rate) Increased Category Coverage: No more category restrictions Increased Insight: Cleaner analysis of the food dynamics in the Traditional Discount Mass stores (i.e. non-supercenter mass stores) History of Information: Over three years of local history to allow better trendability

See us on the Web

http://acnielsen.com/ci or call 1.800.988.4ACN

Business Tools
Happy Anniversary, Convenience Tracknow with year-ago trending!
ACNielsen is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the industrys leading c-store measurement service Convenience Track. An ever-growing number of retailers and manufacturers are using Convenience Track as their source for accurate and actionable local market and account level information. Why? Because Convenience Track is the only source for: NACS Level II Category Management market level data Fastest growing list of retail account reports Year-over-year comparisons for Total U.S., local market (30 major markets), cross-market analysis, product-level analysis Multi-channel/cross-channel analysis Markets aligned with ACNielsen Scantrack definitions ACNielsen Convenience Track allows retailers a better understanding of the total marketplace in which they operate by benchmarking key elements such as sales, pricing and assortment to a local Convenience market. Manufacturers like Convenience Track to gain a more precise read of product movement within c-stores and across retail channels. And with Convenience Tracks market level data, manufacturers can help the retailer uncover new opportunities for the entire category, which is critical to the NACS category management process. If you depend on c-stores for your business, depend on Convenience Track for c-store information. Whatever category you follow, Convenience Track has the information for you to make the right business decisions.

for Retail Tracking

Perform Retailer-Specific Cross Channel Analysis
The continual blurring of retail channels has redefined how both retailers and manufacturers view the business landscape and their competition. With competitive analyses playing a major part in todays category management process, todays top retailers are requiring multi-channel assessments in category reviews. ACNielsen Multi-Channel Trading Areas provide the only true view of the competitive set across channels, in the retailers geographic definition. ACNielsen Multi-Channel Trading Area information can be used to assist retailers and manufacturers alike in gaining a better understanding of the full range of competition. And manufacturers can enhance retail relations by analyzing an account in the retailers own definition. In contrast to attempting a retailer-specific cross channel analysis by using the nearest syndicated market view, ACNielsens custom views provide the only information defined exactly to a retailers view of their business. ACNielsen now offers over 70 individual Multi-channel Trading Areas for key retail accounts. So contact your ACNielsen representative today to find out more about our account-specific capabilities.

Consumer Insight 15

Key Advantages of ACNielsen Multi-Channel Trading Areas:

Better retailer relations by using retailer-specific view of information More consistent apples-to-apples comparison by using same geographic view as the retailer More accurate understanding of product movement across food, drug and mass channels Expanded category management analytic capabilities Integrated with other ACNielsen services

Convenience Track is the only source for:

NACS Level II Category Management market level data Fastest growing list of retail account reports Year-over-year comparisons for Total U.S., local market (30 major markets), cross-market analysis, product-level analysis Multi-channel/cross-channel analysis Markets aligned with ACNielsen Scantrack definitions

See us on the Web

http://acnielsen.com/ci or call 1.800.988.4ACN

Consumer Insight 16

Business Tools for Decision Support Services

Workstation InformationServer 2.0 with NITROWorking the way you do
ACNielsen Workstation InformationServer was the industrys first 32-bit, object-oriented decision support tool. Version 2.0 represents ACNielsens continued integration with industry standard applicationsdesigned to work the way you do. Workstation InformationServer 2.0 lets you move even more quickly from analysis to presentation with our NITRO feature. Designed as the next generation of ACNielsens award-winning NITE product, NITRO can link your database information directly into Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. And the ACNielsen information remains live, retaining its properties for consistent multidimensional viewing, manipulation and analysis within MS-Office. Imagine the gains in productivity! And since Workstation InformationServer 2.0 leverages MS-Office, think of the reduction in application cost and training. Workstation InformationServer 2.0 with NITRO includes other productivity improvements: Enhanced navigation of data hierarchies and custom dimension items Enhanced cumulative methods and calculation order Enhanced functionality to support web based application development Even with the upgraded capabilities, Workstation InformationServer 2.0 retains its speed, power and extreme flexibility. Its scalability supports both small and enterprise environments, local or distributed. And Workstation InformationServer continues to provide a smooth transition from current 16-bit environment. Talk to your ACNielsen representative or visit our web site today to learn more about ACNielsen Workstation InformationServer 2.0.

Extend the functionality with NITRO Starter Kit

Provided at no additional charge to licensed NITRO clients, the ACNielsen NITRO Starter Kit for Excel gives users capabilities once reserved for costly custom applications. The Starter Kit increases productivity by meeting basic information needs with easily accessible standardized report formats. Combining the power of Scantrack information with the simplicity of a Microsoft Excel interface, the Starter Kit addresses 12 of the most commonly analyzed business issues using familiar report layouts and formatting. The Starter Kits applications give NITRO users the ability to sort, filter, chart and manipulate syndicated information transforming their data into actionable knowledge. And the report templates can be customized to your companys specific layout requirements. The ease of use and functionality of Microsoft Excel bring advanced analytical capabilities to every user. Issues like pricing, merchandising trends, opportunity and volume decomposition are addressed with a few clicks of the mouse. Talk with your ACNielsen representative about how the NITRO Starter Kit can give your brands a boost.

ACNielsen NITRO Starter Kit Reports*

Volume & Share Volume Decomposition Volume & Share Trends Opportunity Gap Rank New Products Account/Market Rank Distribution Merchandising/Promotion Summary Merchandising/Promotion Trends Pricing Analysis Pricing Gaps
* Customization of templates is also available through ACNielsens Custom Application Services

See us on the Web

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Business Tools
ACNielsen Homescan originally developed its Consumer Marketplace Report (CMR) to identify what was happening in the market across all departments and product groups. Today, with Cross OutletFacts, manufacturers and retailers receive the final piece, a cross-outlet shopping analysis which helps quantify account loyalty by showing which channels and accounts consumers shop. Cross OutletFacts is part of the industrys most successful syndicated suite of category management applications, delivering all-outlet coverage, the largest static sample sizes (for quality trendability) and multiple delivery options. Used in conjunction with other ACNielsen Homescan syndicated offerings such as ConsumerFacts, ChannelFacts and Account Shopper Profiler, ACNielsen can offer our customers a complete sales story for key retailers in each market. Cross OutletFacts helps to answer such questions as: Where else are my core customers shopping? What about my occasional customer? How much are my customers spending at the competitors stores? What are they buying in other stores? Which categories present an opportunity and which are potential risks? Cross OutletFacts provides cross purchasing insights for key retailers within a market. The application shows retailers which channels and accounts consumers shop

for Consumer Behavior

Consumer Insight 17

Cross-Outlet Shopping Analysis Completes the Sales Story

instead of their store. Cross OutletFacts also helps with category development by revealing which product classes chain shoppers shop the competition for. Manufacturers benefit from Cross OutletFacts by identifying new opportunities to focus marketing efforts and new product initiatives against alternative chains and channels. And Trade Marketing and field sales reps can use Cross OutletFacts to build a strong case for their category with retailers. Speak to your ACNielsen representative today to learn more about Cross OutletFacts and other ACNielsen Homescan syndicated category management applications.

With Cross OutletFacts, you get:

The largest Panel static measure in the industry (more than three times our nearest competitor) Immediate access to over 120 product groups across 10 departments Coverage for each of 19 major markets Both core and occasional shopper groups for key retailers Shopping insights for major channels and over 140 retailers Total shopping and product group-level shopping measures Custom options also available

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