Keller Fay will track conversations about both the Olympics and companies advertising during the games across a sample of 8,000 13-69-year-olds.

Ed Keller, CEO at Keller Fay, said: “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 Olympic investment. 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 firm joins Arbitron, ComScore and Omniture, who earlier this week were appointed by the broadcaster to provide cross-platform audience measurement for the games, in what NBC has dubbed “the billion dollar lab”.

NBC’s president of research and media development, Alan Wurtzel, said: “Studies increasingly illustrate that beyond raw ratings and impressions, the power of advertising is maximised when messages become part of consumer conversation. We expect that our research findings about word-of-mouth will serve as an added resource to our valued advertisers.”