Thumbprint LLC Releases Base Rating Score on Top 25 Candy Manufacturers for Valentine's Day 2010

CLEVELAND, OH--(Marketwire - February 15, 2010) - The Base Rating is a powerful circular advertisement research tool that provides a consistent, objective standard for evaluating advertised brands. The key to the system is that it puts all ads into context: The Base Rating calculates ad ratings that can be used synergistically with Point of Sales (POS) data to help companies better understand how circular advertisement quality can positively or negatively affect brand sales.

Hershey and Mars dominated The Base Rating for the 4 weeks leading up to Valentine's Day at the top 125 Food, Drug and Mass channel retailers. The Base Rating Weighted Share of Quality ads shows Hershey 32.04% and Mars 31.70%. Complete Base Rating information on the top 25 Candy manufacturers is below.

The Base Rating differs significantly from other ad tracking services, which simply collect and organize circular ads and leave companies to subjectively evaluate how sales may be affected.

The Base Rating enables users to:

-- Easily compare brand support at any retail level
-- Increase advertising return on investment (ROI)
-- Strengthen positioning in contract negotiations with partners
-- Anticipate and manage changes in frequently dynamic markets

The key to The Base Rating's patent pending process is that it puts all ads into context using a complex data model and calculations that incorporate more than 30 ad metrics and 10 key ad attributes as well as the retailer, the retailer's competition and the market as a whole. Thumbprint's data warehouse of ads used for these calculations currently includes more than 80 million circular ads from the top 125 retail chains across the United States and Canada. Based on the results of The Base Rating's data model and calculations, circular ads for each brand are categorized into one of three distinct groups (Superior Quality, Competitive Quality or Poor Quality) at the retail banner level. It is then an easy process to compare sales data to ad quality scores and calculate ROI for each brand, with historical ad quality ratings available for most retailers from January 3, 2009.The Base Rating provides immediate data. As soon as the ad is entered in Thumbprint's system, it is scored and results are provided.

Thumbprint LLC has partnered with leading Wall Street Analysts to produce a scoring system that can be an early indicator of Market Share movement. In established product categories, such as candy, Thumbprint LLC has found a strong correlation with quality ad count data and market share.

Complete Base Rating information on the top 25 Candy manufacturers is below. For more information on The Base Rating, please visit http://www.thebaserating.com/reports/Top25CandyManufacturers-Valentines2010.pdf

                                                                        Ad
                          Base   Quality Quality  Weighted Weighted  Block
Manufacturer              Rating   Ads    Share   Quality    Share   Count
                          ------ ------- -------  -------- --------  ------
Private Brand               2.80      80    7.99%    65.45     8.01%    119
Storck USA, L.P.            2.34      14    1.40%     8.69     1.06%     36
Mars Chocolate North
 America, LLC               2.32     201   20.08%   259.01    31.70%    511
Hershey Foods Corporation   2.29     366   36.56%   261.84    32.04%    923
Hawaiian Host, Inc.         2.27       3    0.30%     3.00     0.37%     10
Just Born Inc               2.22       5    0.50%     5.86     0.72%     23
Elmer Candy Company         2.21       7    0.70%     4.23     0.52%     24
Brown & Haley               2.20       1    0.10%     0.02     0.00%      9
Wrigley Jr Company          2.19      37    3.70%    37.24     4.56%    100
Nestle S.A.                 2.18     131   13.09%    46.18     5.65%    324
Gray & Co.                  2.11       1    0.10%     1.16     0.14%     10
Cadbury Adams USA LLC       2.09      32    3.20%    38.30     4.69%     87
Farley's & Sathers Candy
 Co., Inc.                  2.06       5    0.50%     4.11     0.50%     44
Tootsie Roll Industries     2.05      10    1.00%     7.44     0.91%     45
Russell Stover Candies      2.05      49    4.90%    35.91     4.39%    237
NECCO                       2.01       6    0.60%     5.40     0.66%     56
American Licorice Company   2.00       1    0.10%     2.38     0.29%      9
Archibald Candy Corp.       2.00       4    0.40%     3.10     0.38%     13
Lindt & Sprungli Usa Inc    1.96       9    0.90%     4.93     0.60%     70
Ghirardelli Chocolate Co.   1.93       5    0.50%     2.82     0.34%     40
R.M. Palmer Company         1.90       3    0.30%     1.55     0.19%     34
Ferrero U.S.A., Inc.        1.89      25    2.50%    12.71     1.55%     99
DeMet's Candy Company       1.82       3    0.30%     3.08     0.38%     24
Perfetti Van Melle USA,
 Inc.                       1.69       1    0.10%     0.44     0.05%     23
Kraft Foods                 1.68       2    0.20%     2.35     0.29%     18
PEZ Candy, Inc.             1.50       0    0.00%     0.00     0.00%      9
                          ------ ------- -------  -------- --------  ------

About Thumbprint LLC

Thumbprint LLC is headquartered in Solon, Ohio and currently employs approximately 30 software engineers, graphic designers, network engineers, support specialists and technical writers. We specialize in developing custom software and hosting solutions for businesses of all types and sizes that enable our clients to conduct extensive market research, improve their products and packaging and easily and inexpensively share information.

Contact Information: Contact: Maria DiFranco 440.498.0500 X 1136