LORD OF THE RINGS VIDEOS READY FOR CUSTOMER ONSLAUGHT  ( image)

TARRYTOWN, N.Y., August 30, 2002 - Millions of Americans descended on retail stores August 6th to buy one of the biggest home video releases in history - "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Kmart expected a record onslaught that day, so they again turned to SPAR Group, which handles all video releases in their chain, to set-up all Lord of the Rings displays, stock the VHS videos and DVD cassettes, and ready banners and tie-in promotional items for the crowd.

Lord of the Rings was a dynamite motion picture and one of the top-grossing films ever. New Line Home Entertainment (distributed by Warner Home Video) advertised their cassette VHS and DVD versions, and told the world that availability started at midnight on Tuesday, August 6th.

For motion picture home videos, street release date is critical. Chains can't sell a single copy before the specified time, but must prepare for millions of eager customers rushing to their stores when the hour finally does arrive. Stores that can get displays set up and stocked in time reap enormous sales while those who slip behind frustrate their customers and lose revenue. Kmart continued its reliance on SPAR Group, America's leading retail merchandising company, for the Lord of the Rings introduction because SPAR has the technological and human resources to accomplish the logistical deployment necessary to complete display set-up within the narrow time frames, and has proven its capabilities on numerous previous occasions.

In preparation, SPAR Group, worked for four months to solidify all plans, schedule all Lord of the Rings displays and videos to the stores, and prepare their retail merchandising specialists to strike.

SPAR identified all 113 Kmarts that are open 24 hours per day and assigned crews to set these stores between 10 p.m. and midnight on Monday, August 5th. Teams of merchandising specialists built and stocked large corrugated displays (that sometimes included archway towers) at the front of each store and equipped them with Lord of the Rings banners, standees and buttons. SPAR supplied the stores with movie posters that could be distributed to the first 200 customers who purchased Lord of the Rings.

SPAR merchandised Lord of the Rings home video materials at the remaining 1,718 Kmart stores on Tuesday morning, August 6th. Teams entered these stores beginning at 5 a.m. Tuesday to build large displays at the 622 largest stores then move quickly to other locations to build medium and smaller displays there. All displays had the matching videos, cassettes, promotional items and tie-in materials.

Everything was scheduled for completion at virtually all these stores by 12 noon local time on Tuesday to meet huge anticipated customer demand. And thousands of SPAR merchandising specialists returned to all Kmart stores that Friday to replenish inventories for high-volume weekend shopping expected.

For comparison, SPAR Group set displays, inventories and promotional materials into all Kmarts for the Shrek home video release last fall. With units ready by street date, millions of dollars of that title sold at Kmart the first day alone. For "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," SPAR set 99% of all Kmart stores within eight hours of street release time - making this the fastest national chain display set-up to-date in American history. Lord of the Rings held bigger excitement and anticipated sales than Shrek or Grinch.

SPAR can set an entire national chain in one day because of the combination of its industry-leading technological capabilities and extensive human resources. A significant portion of SPAR's operation is centered on the Internet, supported by sophisticated proprietary logistical deployment software. This system assigns merchandising specialists, gives them instructions and specific plan-o-grams for each store, and schedules materials. The specialists arrive, set up displays, load the inventory, report the work, upload that information to corporate databases in real time, and sometimes even take and upload a digital photo of the finished section.

New Line Home Entertainment (distributed by Warner Home Video) and Kmart executives could watch the national roll-out taking place on their office computers because of SPAR's real-time graphical execution maps. They could see 1,831 red dots, each one representing an individual Kmart store, change to green as each store display was completed. SPAR Internet technology is so sophisticated that a merchandising specialist can report issues or problems back to SPAR field management and get correction instructions almost immediately - not days or weeks later like the industry norm.

Respected SPAR management and 4,500 available merchandising specialists nationwide completed the equation.

As a result, millions of Americans were thrilled to own "Lord of the Rings" home videos exactly when the national advertising fever was blazing and the videos hit the stores. SPAR, Kmart and New Line Home Entertainment (distributed by Warner Home Video) collaborated to make the magic happen.

To learn more about SPAR and its unmatched retail merchandising programs, call 914-332-1400,email servingyou@sparinc.com or check www.sparinc.com.