Shaving/Baseball Link Finally Unearthed

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

You're a sheepish, fooling-spending "tool," marketers note:

]FANLinks� Provides New Insights into Buying Behavior of Baseball Fans Service of Nielsen Sports and ACNielsen Links Sports Fans� Interests to Their Spending Patterns for the First Time Major League Baseball Fans Spend More Than $300 Billion Annually on Consumer Packaged Goods and Nearly $600 Million on Blades & Razors Alone New York, April 11, 2006 � Nielsen Sports and ACNielsen, units of VNU, released FANLinks� information today, disclosing new insights into the purchasing behavior of Major League Baseball (MLB) fans. FANLinks is the first service to combine research on consumers� interests in sports with their purchasing activities. The new FANLinks information reveals Major League Baseball fans spend $348 billion annually on consumer packaged goods. Moreover, followers of the national pastime spend $593 million every year on just blades and razors alone. FANLinks research shows that, while the percentage of blades and razors purchased by all consumers grew 10% between 2004 and 2005, the category grew 17% among MLB fans. Growth among Schick razors was especially strong, with the brand increasing 85% among baseball fans from 2004 to 2005, compared to its 73% average growth overall. FANLinks also enables sports marketers to compare and contrast MLB fans against other sports fans. For example, Private Label blade and razor buyers have a higher than expected purchasing rate among NASCAR and Professional Tennis fans versus MLB fans. Conversely, MLB fans match Gillette�s Venus Razor buyers very nicely. A majority (59%) of Venus Razor buyers are, in fact, fans of Major League Baseball. �At a time when media and their audiences are continually fragmenting, sports sponsorship is becoming an increasingly important marketing tool,� said Ann Marie Dumais, vice president of marketing, Nielsen Ventures. �FANLinks provides a more sophisticated approach to the planning and post analysis of sports sponsorship. For the first time, sports marketers have the ability to gain a much deeper understanding of true purchasing behaviors among specific types of sports fans.� FANLinks uses the ACNielsen Homescan consumer panel to identify households by their interests and associated behavior across a wide variety of popular sports including, but not limited to, the National Association for Stockcar Auto Racing (NASCAR), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Football League (NFL). This information is used in conjunction with household shopping and purchasing behavior recorded by Homescan panelists who use a patented in-home scanner to record their changing attitudes, shopping habits, product purchases and lifestyles. Results offer highly actionable, demographically representative and nationally projectable consumer knowledge to both the consumer packaged goods and retail industries. About Nielsen Sports Nielsen Sports, a unit of VNU, specializes in creating best practices for the sports sponsorship industry. Nielsen Sports is founded on a heritage and commitment to providing information that is results-oriented and objective for both buyers and sellers of sports sponsorships. Nielsen Sports was established in collaboration with Nielsen Ventures, whose mission is to develop innovative new marketing services for the media and entertainment industry. VNU is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media measurement and information (Nielsen Media Research) and business information (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Computing, Intermediair). VNU is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands and New York, USA. The company employs 38,000 people. Total revenues under IFRS amounted to EUR 3.3 billion in 2004. VNU is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam (ASE: VNU) stock exchange. For more information, please visit the VNU website at: www.vnu.com For more information on Nielsen Sports, please visit: www.nielsensports.com About ACNielsen 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. For more information, please visit: www.acnielsen.com

[Guest cooby]

At $18 a pack, razor blades add up fast

[Guest sharpie]

Did they take into account the Mets' "no facial hair policy?"

[RealityChuck]

Doesn't affect me.

[Willets Point]

Does this have something to do with Clemens going to the clubhouse to shave after he's left the game?