• January 5, 2006

Packaged goods giant Unilever Wednesday became the third big marketer to disclose its support of the pilot panel of Project Apollo, the so-called single-source measurement system combining Arbitron's portable people meter system for measuring media exposure and ACNielsen's HomeScan technology for tracking product purchases from a single consumer panel. The announcement, which was made by Arbitron, is significant, because it is a fierce rival of Procter & Gamble, which has been the pushing hard to garner support from other marketers to support Apollo. While only one other marketer, S.C. Johnson, has disclosed its support, Arbitron said six advertisers representing $6.2 billion in aggregate U.S. ad spending have signed agreements to subscribe to the pilot, which begins later this year. -- Joe Mandese