Claim Guidelines for Clients

A. General Claim
Guidelines

The following are guidelines that supplement the provisions in contracts between NIQ and Clients about disclosures of NIQ data for advertising and marketing reasons, and also indicate the situations when NIQ will or will not issue a letter to confirm data appearing in NIQ databases or relevant report. They are based on NIQ experience that claims that do not follow these guidelines may sometimes be misleading to consumers and others. Please submit a request to your NIQ account manager or director, who will handle the request internally.

Timing for processing a request varies depending on the complexity of the claim and supporting data.

Under general legal rules applicable in all relevant jurisdictions, advertising claims must not be misleading. Clients must also abide by comparative advertising laws and regulations in relevant jurisdictions.

Clients must not refer to NIQ or to NIQ data in a disclosure or publication without the appropriate permission in the form of a data confirmation letter.

Clients must not state or imply that NIQ is the source of the product claim itself. The Client, not NIQ, is responsible for the content of its advertising and any claim about its products. NIQ is only the source of the numbers in the database that NIQ reports.

NIQ may not be cited for a claim that does not use objective and verifiable language. Please refer to the citation rules below for our required format.

Clients may not include individual competitor (brand or product) names or specifics from NIQ data in advertising or marketing materials. If comparative figures or charts are used to indicate market share or product position, comparisons may be made only between a Client’s market share or product position and either: (a) total aggregated category; or (b) a sufficient aggregation of category competitor shares in a manner that an individual competitor’s identity or share cannot be broken out; but in no event less than an aggregation of three competitors (e.g. a claim that market share is greater than that of next three competitors, combined).

Clients should be aware that NIQ offers Client-defined (non-standard) product hierarchies, which may lead to different sales numbers reported to different Clients.

NIQ confirms data only by country.

Client may not use NIQ data in a claim for a period exceeding 12 months from initial provision by NIQ (unless a Client updates the claim with more recent data). If NIQ has issued a letter in which it verifies the data supporting a Client claim, this letter will be valid for a period of 12 months from date of issuance.

IMPORTANT: Data confirmations will be provided at NIQ’s total discretion according to a set format that reproduces the NIQ data from the database and makes an objective statement about it e.g.: “highest volume of items sold in the period from xx January to xx January 2025”. NIQ is not obligated to provide data confirmations, as NIQ data is reported “as is” and is already available for the Client as part of its subscription. NIQ may refuse to issue a data confirmation even if all criteria appear to be met, for any reason. Normally this would be based on market practice or particular issues at the time.

B. NIQ Considerations

The following is an overview of when NIQ will consider issuing a data confirmation letter which is requested by a Client as evidence for its advertising or marketing claims.

NIQ will consider data confirmations where the NIQ data:

constitutes retail sales measurement or consumer panel sales information; and

is within a standard database product hierarchy; and

shows highest sales by volume or value in a period of 12 months or more (subject to limits locally determined, and according to which data is currently held by NIQ) which is:

at brand level or (if confirmed by NIQ in each case) at sub-brand level;

recent and relevant (i.e. if the claim is true for the last 12 months moving annual total (MAT) or latest calendar year); and

only if there is a statistically significant difference between the Client’s share and the competing brand.

Example: “X brand had the highest volume of items sold in the period from xx January 2024 to xx January 2025 in France in the xxx category”.

In any case, NIQ will only approve data to be included in publications to the extent that the contract allows for disclosure of data by the Client for the relevant purpose.

NIQ will not consider making data confirmations for:

claims other than market leadership claims;

a leading market position that was true in the past but is no longer the case;

any statements it considers to be subjective e.g. “top brand”, “#1 brand”, “best,” “favorite,” “leading”;

claims at item or SKU level, or on any custom roll-up selection of items to suit the claim;

data that the Client has not already subscribed to on an ongoing (subscription) basis;

pricing claims;

T&D cells with B2C coverage of less than 80% and those with a high proportion of modelling or absence of key retailers;

ongoing repeat internal compliance requests (data confirmations are not included as part of NIQ’s services, as they are discretionary; all data is available in the licensed databases and files);

data from samples or sources that NIQ believes may not present a statistically accurate picture;

claims that NIQ believes may lead to or are to support a dispute between Clients;

data from third parties;

data calculated by Client or by third parties;

data relating to third parties (especially brand competitors);

global claims;

regional claims (unless there is NIQ data for substantially all countries in the region);

T&D claims on specific local regions (e.g. South Italy) or channels (e.g. hypermarkets);

market leadership claims at brand group level; nor

NIQ data for which no right to disclose is contemplated in the terms and conditions for the respective service.

Case-by-case consideration will be given regarding data confirmations based on:

SA&I data, customized studies or research;

custom categories;

certain categories of data (as advised from time to time, or designated locally);

retailer key account data (also known as KAD or retailer named account data); in these cases, express retailer consent is generally required, and specific restrictions and conditions may be imposed.

For these case-by-case considerations, more specific citations rules will be stated in the confirmation letter, and NIQ may also place restrictions on use of the NIQ name in external advertising.

Special considerations for certain types of claims

Claims excluding private label sales
Confirmations of highest sales by volume or value excluding total private label sales (i.e. all private label brands in a market), will be considered, if statistically significant. If a data confirmation is issued, this will be subject to express clarification.

Client-defined hierarchies
NIQ will consider issuing a confirmation letter for data reported in a Client database product hierarchy that is not part of NIQ’s standard portfolio, only if it considers that a claim based on this hierarchy will not lead to confusion and provided all the above criteria are met. Express clarification of the Client-determined hierarchy will be stated, and NIQ may place restrictions on the reference to the data or NIQ’s name in any external advertising.

Multi-country claims
NIQ will only validate data reported per individual country absent an approved exception (e.g., G14 Clients). If a Client wishes to make a multi-country claim (including regional or global claims), the Client is solely responsible for any aggregation or extrapolation of data to support a multi-country claim and it may not refer to NIQ as the source of such data, except as specified in writing by NIQ.

Brand name variations
If a product is known by different names in different countries, NIQ may confirm the reported results under the actual product name used in each country.

Competitor data
If, exceptionally, the NIQ data confirmation includes the data for the Client’s competitors, masking shall be undertaken to exclude brand names, NIQ will not issue data confirmation letters that permit reference to competitor names or brands. Clients must comply with local advertising regulations and comparative advertising laws.

Customized research (SA&I) claims
Clients must communicate the request for a client claim to NIQ before the research design commences. This will ensure that appropriate designs are used and reviewed prior to data collection. If no such request is made, the necessary design requirements may not be implemented and NIQ may not be able to provide a confirmation letter for the results.

C. Other Purposes

Request for data confirmations for the purposes of legal proceedings (including the support of trademark applications or disputes), for use in financial prospectuses, annual reports and all other purposes will be referred to NIQ’s Legal department for consideration. Use of NIQ data in legal proceedings (without a court order) requires express written consent from NIQ and is only granted in exceptional cases.

Specific country variations may be notified from time to time.

D. Citation Rules

When using NIQ data or referring to NIQ as a source in publications and other external disclosures, Clients must always include the appropriate citation information. The citations components that must be included (unless expressly directed otherwise in the NIQ confirmation letter) are as follows.

RMS and CPS data

Markets Outside of the United States

The appropriate NIQ legal entity name

Time period (e.g., calendar year, MAT)

Claimed fact (e.g. market share in value sales or volume sales);

Market Break Down

Country

Category, Product Group or Segment on which the claim is based (e.g., total shampoo, total anti-dandruff shampoo), including whether that segment is Client-defined

Example:

“based on data reported by NIQ through its Scantrack Service for the total shampoo category for the 52-week period ending 30 June 2025, for the German market, according to the NIQ standard product hierarchy. Copyright © [2025], Nielsen Consumer LLC”

Further specifications for Tech & Durables data:

Market Break Down (NIQ Panelmarket Total or NIQ Panelmarket B2C only)

Multi-Country Region (if applicable)

Category, Product Group or Segment according to NIQ (not client-specific) terminology (e.g. “Freestanding Cookers” and not just “Cookers”)

Example: T&D retail measurement data:

United States Market

NIQ’s brand name

The Product/Database source (Scantrack, MarketTrack, Homescan, etc.) or specific study (Global Omnibus, Gas Impact Homescan Survey, Frozen Food Study, etc.)

Region and Channel information

Time period referenced: month/day/year and the timeframe, i.e. 52 Weeks Ending (date), 4 Weeks Ending (date), etc.

Example, FMCG retail measurement data (United States):

“[Client] claim based on data reported by NIQ through its ______ Service for the ______ category for the ___-week period ending ______, for the _______ market [specify region or view] and _____ channel [specify channel], according to the [NIQ standard/ClientName custom] product hierarchy. Copyright © [2025], Nielsen Consumer LLC”

SA&I custom research projects (minimum requirements)

The data confirmation and required citation must always:

include the margin of error;

include a description of the area and population covered by the result; and

use expressions which are consistent with the questionnaire wording.

The Client publication must also include a list of all questions asked in the survey to enable confirmation of the result.

Example:
“Client claim based on research conducted by NIQ, [date, sample size, population details, margin of error].”

Case-by-case approval from NIQ is required for SA&I data publications that refer to NIQ as a source and citation formats will be advised by NIQ in writing.

All other data types

To be confirmed in writing by NIQ.