The New Jersey company’s decision to launch the continuous study on this side of the Atlantic follows the completion of a number of UK projects this year, including a nationwide word-of-mouth study commissioned jointly by Starcom MediaVest, ESPN and News International.

Keller Fay also worked with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) to include a WOM measurement module in the IPA’s Touchpoints survey of media usage.

The agency ran a pilot of TalkTrack UK in May this year, surveying 2,578 respondents aged 13-plus asking about conversations they have had with other people, both online and offline, where brands and products are mentioned.

It found that the average British consumer discusses 70 brands per week, with 81% of conversations occurring face-to-face.

The US version of TalkTrack has been running since 2006 and measures more than 350,000 brand conversations through interviews with 36,000 people annually.

CEO Ed Keller said: “Word of mouth has emerged as a critical element in marketing strategy and has proven to play a strong role in determining brand success.”