Interesting snippet in the June 5th issue of Business Week's "Up Front" section: a marketing research firm, Keller Fay Group, conducts research online that shows that, on average, Americans bring up specific brands 56 times per week...


...in the normal course of conversing with friends, family and co-workers.
Wow. Talk about buzz marketing. Apparently, the founders of this firm decided to launch this study because they became aware of how brand-conscious we Americans really are, and how we pepper our conversations with brand mentions. I'm not surprised about Americans' brand consciousness, just the frequency of brand citings we purportedly make on a weekly basis.
Sure enough, I went to the firm's Web site and found this: "Interviewing a fresh, nationally representative sample of 700 Americans 13+ every week of the year, TalkTrack™ measures over 250,000 conversations about brands annually."
Apparently, this whole idea of "talk track," attempts to relate the amount of "talk share" to growth in "market share." Interesting concept. Might also be interesting to see how all of this might impact brand valuation, as well. Of course the latter is already done very well by Interbrand and Business Week (Top 100 Brands) on an annual basis and makes for compelling reading. I'm curious as to how the consultants involved will ultimately attempt to quantify all of the data they're collecting, and whether they will compile a report or launch a book about their findings. Hmmm. . .
The question becomes: what do brands have to do to get their own buzz going to build awareness these days, and become part of our mainstream conversations?