On December 9, 2009, the Keller Fay Group 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.
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.
The power of advertising is maximized when messages become part of consumer conversation. Previous Keller Fay 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. Their research has also illustrated that advertising-driven word of mouth includes higher levels of buy/try recommendations and can help increase purchase intent. The Olympics research will be powered by TalkTrack, Keller Fay'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.