CHICAGO, Dec. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CME, the world's largest and most diverse financial exchange, has named VSA Partners, Inc., a global branding and strategic marketing firm, as its agency of record. VSA will help develop CME's comprehensive brand identity and work with the company's marketing team to create an integrated marketing program that reflects CME's evolution and its enabling role in the world economy. "VSA has extensive experience working with companies undergoing transformation and with companies launching new products and entering into new partnerships," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. "The VSA team has the talent and ability to help us create a truly integrated and effective global marketing strategy to ensure that we give new substance and greater visibility to the evolving CME brand, consistent with our leadership position." "CME is one of the world's most recognized brands in global financial markets," said CME Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue. "As we continue to expand worldwide and further diversify our business, we have a tremendous opportunity to enhance CME's position as a leading global exchange and reach new customers in new geographies and market sectors. We believe VSA Partners is the right company to help us achieve these goals." Headquartered in Chicago, VSA has a long list of world-class clients, including BP, Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, IBM, GE, the Gap, Time Warner and The Coca-Cola Company. The agency's financial services clients have included American Express, Ameritrade, and First Data. Last month, VSA launched the brand identity for Chicago 2016, the campaign to bring the Summer Olympic Games to Chicago. "VSA's collaboration with CME will go beyond advertising to include corporate and customer communications, partner communications, events and promotions," said CME Chief Marketing Officer John Roberts. "Across a range of media, VSA's work will seek to create a uniform understanding of CME through carefully tailored messages to customers, investors, employees and partner audiences." VSA collaborated with CME on its 2005 annual report to shareholders and more recently helped develop and execute CME's new corporate advertising campaign launched in September, "Smart People, Great Results," with ads appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Barron's and top-tier industry publications. Both the annual report and the advertising campaign focus on CME's leading global customers -- fund managers, financial advisors and professional traders -- and show how CME benchmark futures and options products improve the way markets work and enable users to achieve positive financial results. "CME is an innovative organization with a rich history and enormous possibilities ahead of it," said Jamie Koval, a principal at VSA. "We're honored and excited to partner with CME to convey the depth, breadth and scope of the company in new ways." CME ( http://www.cme.com/ ) is the world's largest and most diverse financial exchange. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on the CME Globex(R) electronic trading platform and on its trading floors. CME offers futures and options on futures in these product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and alternative investment products such as weather, real estate and economic derivatives. CME is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CMENASDAQ:CME), which is part of the Russell 1000(R) Index and the S&P 500(R) Index. Statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. More detailed information about factors that may affect our performance may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, which can be obtained at its Web site at http://www.sec.gov/ . We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME, the globe logo, CME Globex and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CLEARING 21 is a registered trademark of CME and New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. S&P, S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, Nikkei 225, Russell 1000, Russell 2000, TRAKRS, Total Return Asset Contracts and other trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks that are not proprietary to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. are the property of their respective owners, and are used herein under license. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at http://www.cme.com/ . CME-G DATASOURCE: CME CONTACT: Media Contacts, Anita Liskey, +1-312-466-4613, or William Parke, +1-312-930-3467, ; or Investor Contact, John Peschier, +1-312-930-8491, all of CME Web site: http://www.cme.com/

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