NPD and VMS Join Forces Offering Greater Insights into the Men's Fragrance Market.

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. -- The NPD Group, Inc., leading provider of consumer and retail information, has joined forces with VMS, the world leader of integrated media solutions, to offer the manufacturers and retailers of fragrances a powerful new capability.

For the first time the fragrance

market will have a tool to help them better understand the impact and interaction of consumer communications on their sales volume. "This spring's enhancement of NPD's Men's FragranceTrack will add a deeper understanding of how a fragrance's advertising strategy is linked to its awareness and image." said Diane Nicholson, president of NPD's Beauty business, adding, "NPD has been providing the fragrance industry with the most accurate and reliable data on consumer preferences for over ten years; now we can enhance our reporting to show how advertising and editorial impact those preferences."

This new report will include topline information from VMS' advertising and editorial analysis. The VMS reporting combined with NPD's FragranceTrack information will not only give the fragrance industry reporting on spending by company and brand, but also a better understanding of how advertising dollars spent impact brand awareness, image, and news and editorial coverage. This capability will be available on a syndicated basis. Custom reporting and analysis will also be available.

In the fall of 2006, NPD and VMS began their partnership by initiating the development process. "NPD's consumer preference data enables us to tie the communication audit of the fragrance market to significant business outcomes" said Gary Getto, EVP Media Research at VMS. "We are looking forward to providing insights, and leveraging our best-of-breed editorial and advertising content and analysis, as part of the Men's Fragrance Track report in spring, 2007." VMS plans to continue to partner with NPD on a series of similar offerings for other vertical markets.

About The NPD Group, Inc.

The NPD Group is the leading provider of reliable and comprehensive consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries. Today, more than 1,600 manufacturers, retailers, and service companies rely on NPD to help them drive critical business decisions at the global, national, and local market levels. NPD helps our clients to identify new business opportunities and guide product development, marketing, sales, merchandising, and other functions. Information is available for the following industry sectors: automotive, beauty, consumer technology, entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, foodservice, home, software, sports, technology distribution channel, toys, and wireless. For more information, visit www.npd.com.

About VMS

VMS is the world leader in integrated media intelligence solutions that bring together news monitoring and advertising monitoring across all media - broadcast, radio, print, Internet and outdoor. VMS provides public relations firms, advertising agencies and marketers worldwide with the most comprehensive, cutting-edge editorial and ad retrieval, management and analysis solutions, including industry-leading advertising and public relations measurement and tracking tools.

Importantly, VMS monitors thousands of hours of television and radio broadcast news in all 210 U.S. DMAs[TM] - by far the most of any provider - through a unique nationwide digital network, enabling us to help manage brand reputation with unparalleled speed, breadth and depth.

VMS also provides access to the largest continually updated advertising database in the world with over five million ads. The competitive advertising intelligence VMS provides includes U.S. and international creative content as well as domestic spending and occurrence data from Nielsen for the top 100 U.S. television markets. VMS operates 15 full-service offices and 3 monitoring centers throughout the U.S. For more information about VMS call (212) 329-5651 or visit www.vmsinfo.com.