Keller Fay Study Finds Vancouver Olympics Coverage Is Stimulating Millions of Conversations About Advertisers' Brands

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Feb. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The Keller Fay Group (www.kellerfay.com) today released initial results from a survey of American consumers to assess the impact of Olympics advertising on consumer word of mouth about brands.  Five days into the Olympics, the study projected an average of 3 million more people talking about each advertiser, compared to a benchmark set during the six weeks prior to the start of the Games.

The study, conducted for Olympics broadcaster NBC Universal, was based on a total of 4,211 online interviews with consumers 18 to 54 years of age, including a wave of 1,277 interviews conducted between the Opening Ceremony on February 12 and midnight on Feb. 17. The study utilizes Keller Fay's ongoing TalkTrack® system for measuring all forms of word of mouth, including online, face-to-face, and over the phone conversations.

The study also found:

• Two-thirds (65%) of conversations about advertiser brands were positive compared to only 6% negative, a ratio of 11-1 positive to negative, which compares favorably to the norm of 7-1 in other studies by Keller Fay.

• Compared to the pre-Olympics benchmark, advertiser WOM levels were 41% higher, on average, for TV viewers of the Olympics, and 84% higher for people following the Olympics on television and on the internet and/or mobile device.  People who are spending 3+ hours following the Olympics each day were 63% more likely to talk about the advertisers compared to the benchmark.

"Our study takes advantage of NBC's Olympics coverage -- it's been called a 'billion dollar laboratory' -- to test our hypothesis that advertising on TV and online is a powerful driver of consumer word of mouth and advocacy, which marketers already know is the most powerful channel to motivate purchasing," said Ed Keller, CEO of Keller Fay. "Less than halfway through the Games, the results are already exceeding our expectations, with many more days remaining to build word of mouth momentum."  

The Keller Fay Group is the first full-service market research company focused exclusively on word of mouth (WOM) marketing.  In addition to TalkTrack®, their syndicated study of all word of mouth (offline and online), they offer a complete array of custom research services related to WOM.

SOURCE The Keller Fay Group