TNS announces winners of TNS Choice Awards for Chicago

Award Recognizes Today’s Top Banks

Award Recognizes Today’s Top Banks in Establishing Strong Client Relationships and Offering Best Custom Focused Solutions

New York, NY - TNS, the world’s largest custom research company, today announced the winners of the TNS Choice Award for Metro Chicago. The winners for 2010 are Harris Bank, PNC Bank and Fifth Third Bank.

The TNS Choice Award recognizes banks that have achieved superiority in the competitive marketplace. Winners of the award have shown themselves to be the choice of Chicago residents by their strong performance in attracting new customers, satisfying and retaining customers, and/or by winning a larger share of their customers’ total banking business.

Winners were chosen as part of TNS’ Banking Chicago program, a regional application of the national Market Effectiveness in Consumer Banking research program. The Market Effectiveness program, which surveys individuals who are responsible for making financial decisions, evaluates the competitive momentum of individual banks. TNS uses ten different metrics to assess how effective individual banks are in terms of increasing the number of customers they serve and in terms of building larger, stronger customer relationships. Using all ten measures, TNS calculates an overall “competitive momentum score.” The institutions with the highest score are declared the winners.

“There are other awards out there that recognize strong customer satisfaction, said Joe Hagan, Senior Vice President of Multi-client Programs at TNS and Manager of the TNS Choice Awards. “While customer satisfaction is important, we believe what matters most is performance in the competitive marketplace. Success is influenced by the value offered, the convenience provided, the bank’s reputation, the clarity of advertising, the quality of products, and many other things. All of these, working together in a complex dynamic, influence people’s choices and distinguish the winners from the losers in the competitive marketplace. We have very strong and well positioned winners this year. They should be very proud of their success.”

About TNS
TNS, who recently merged with Research International, is the world’s largest custom research agency delivering actionable insights and research-based business advice to its clients so they can make more effective business decisions. TNS offers comprehensive industry knowledge within the Consumer, Technology, Finance, Automotive and Political & Social sectors, supported by a unique product offering that stretches across the entire range of marketing and business issues, specializing in product development & innovation, brand & communication, stakeholder management, retail & shopper, andqualitative research. Delivering best-in-class service across more than 75 countries, TNS is part of Kantar, the world’s largest research, insight and consultancy network. Please visit www.tnsglobal.com for more information.

About Kantar
Kantar is one of the world’s largest insight, information and consultancy networks. By uniting the diverse talents of its 13 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and inspirational insights for the global business community. Its 26,500 employees work across 95 countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group’s services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies.
For further information, please visit us at www.kantar.com