New York, December 9, 2009 - The Keller Fay Group today announced that NBC Universal has selected the word of mouth market research company to monitor and analyze viewers’ brand-related conversations that will take place during the 2010 Winter Olympics.  Word of mouth measurement is a new addition to NBC Universal’s Olympics research initiative for 2010, part of a high profile suite of research activities that NBC Universal has dubbed “The Billion Dollar Lab.”

The Keller Fay Group will measure the word of mouth conversations about the Olympics and Olympics advertisers from a projectable sample of more than 8,000 consumers ages 13-69 to assess the impact of advertising on word of mouth during the upcoming sports event, scheduled to take place in Vancouver in February 2010.

“We are excited about our collaboration with NBC Universal and expect that our research will help serve as an innovative new tool for advertisers to gain a fuller understanding of the viral impact of their Olympics investment,” said Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group.  “Measuring word of mouth that is stimulated by advertising helps marketers fine-tune their messaging and enables them to harness the full power of advertising.”

Previous Keller Fay Group studies have indicated that ad campaigns during certain sports events were associated with significantly higher levels of brand mentions among viewers and that spikes in word of mouth were directly linked to advertisers’ media plans.  The company’s research has also illustrated that advertising-driven word of mouth includes higher levels of “buy/try” recommendations and can help to increase purchase intent.

“We look forward to partnering with the Keller Fay Group to augment our advertising research efforts for the upcoming 2010 winter games,” said Alan Wurtzel, President, Research and Media Development, NBC Universal.  “Studies increasingly illustrate that beyond raw ratings and impressions, the power of advertising is maximized when messages become a part of consumer conversation.   We expect that our research findings about word of mouth will serve as an added resource to our valued advertisers.”

The Olympics word of mouth research will be powered by TalkTrack(R), the Keller Fay Group’s measurement program for word of mouth marketing that monitors daily conversations of Americans in all channels (online and offline).  Results will be measured in real time throughout the course of the 2010 winter Olympics.