Ed Keller, CEO
Ed Keller is a well-known and highly regarded marketing research executive, who has been called “one of the most recognized names in word of mouth.” The publication of Keller’s book, The Influentials, has been called the “seminal moment in the development of word of mouth.” According to The Washington Post, “The Influentials… deserves a place on the shelf of anyone in business or politics.” The Influentials was selected as one of five finalists for the 2004 Berry-AMA Book Prize for Best Book in Marketing, an honor that recognizes books “whose innovative ideas have had significant impact on marketing and related fields.”
Keller’s career in marketing and media research spans nearly thirty years. Prior to founding the Keller Fay Group, he served as CEO of renowned market research firm, RoperASW (and its successor companies). Earlier in his career, Ed was an executive at Yankelovich.
Ed is a Board member and past president of the Board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), a board member of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), a board member of Bazaarvoice, and a member of the University of Pennnsylvania’s Annenberg School’s Alumni Advisory Board. He is Past president of the Market Research Council, and has lectured on word of mouth marketing at Wharton, Columbia Business School, NYU’s Stern School, and other leading universities. He is a frequent speaker about Word of Mouth marketing to business audiences, and is quoted frequently in the marketing trade press.
Ed is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and earned his Masters in Communications at Penn’s Annenberg School for Communications.
Brad Fay, Chief Operating Officer
Brad is the Chief Operating Officer of the Keller Fay Group (kellerfay.com), the award-winning word of mouth research and consulting company he co-founded with CEO Ed Keller. He is also the co-author, with Ed Keller, of The Face to Face Book, scheduled to be published in May 2012 by the Free Press imprint of Simon & Schuster.
In The Face to Face Book, the world’s pre-eminent word of mouth marketing experts demonstrate how in-person social influence, not online social media, is the key to soaring revenues. Based on this firm’s extensive research, the book includes illuminating social marketing case studies drawn from leading companies such as Apple, Best Buy, Dell, General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, LL Bean, MillerCoors, Procter & Gamble, and Toyota.
In 2007, Brad won the Grand Innovation Award of the Advertising Research Foundation for the development of Keller Fay’s TalkTrack®, the first continuous measurement system for all word of mouth, including the 90% of WOM which occurs offline. In 2011, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Connecticut Graduate Program in Survey Research, where he received his Master’s degree.
Brad was elected in 2011 to the Board of Directors of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and serves on the trade association’s Executive Committee. He also co-chairs WOMMA’s Influencer Marketing Council. He is an elected member of the Market Research Council, and has lectured about survey research at Rutgers, Yale, and Boston University.
Prior to founding the Keller Fay Group, Brad served as managing director at the marketing and opinion research company RoperASW and its successor companies.
Brad lives with his two teenage children in Montgomery Township, NJ, where he served four years as a member of the town’s council, including one year as deputy mayor. He is a cum laude graduate of Colby College in Waterville, ME, and holds a Master’s in Political Science from the University of Connecticut.
Steve Thomson, Managing Director, UK
Steve is the Managing Director of the Keller Fay Groups UK office, which opened in 2011.
Prior to joining the Keller Fay Group, Steve was a director in a number of major research organizations: Research International, GfK/NOP, and Ipsos. He also previously served as managing director of RoperASW Europe prior to its integration into GfK/NOP.
Steve has widespread experience in researching a wide range of marketing and communications issues, including consumer trends, innovation, brand strategy, and advertising/communications effectiveness. He has extensively covered the issues of brand advocacy, word of mouth, and influentials from many angles, and has spoken at a number of conferences and industry events on these topics. In 2010 he was co-winner of the Best Paper award at the Ephmra (healthcare market research) conference, on the subject of The Propatient, covering the impact of vocal and widely-networked consumers.
Steve holds a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.
Jim Schaffer, VP of Business Development
In his role as VP of Business Development, Jim helps marketers, media companies, and agencies harness the power of word of mouth to optimize their business results. He brings nearly 25 years of experience in media and market research, including 15 years in traditional and digital advertising sales.
Prior to joining Keller Fay, Jim served as head of agency relationships for Kantar’s Cymfony division, a social media monitoring company. While there he helped establish Cymfony as a leader in the analysis of global social media content. In addition, he championed the company’s first global agency partnership with Mindshare’s London headquarters.
Before Cymfony, Jim was the VP of Client Development for Harris Interactive’s Media & Entertainment practice. At Harris, Jim helped co-develop a new methodology for demonstrating cross-platform media engagement at network, program, and individual advertiser levels.
Jim holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania.
Heather Evans, Vice President
Heather Evans is Vice President at Keller Fay. She has ten years experience in the field of market research. At Keller Fay, Heather helped to design, and in 2006, to launch TalkTrack®, the firm’s continuous syndicated survey for measuring offline as well as online word of mouth. Her focus now is management of the TalkTrack® product in the US and, beginning in 2011, in the UK, and she is engaged in product development and R&D relating to forthcoming products and services of the firm.
Before joining Keller Fay, she worked at Dow Jones where she managed and executed consumer and business-to-business market research for the company’s suite of prestigious brands, such as The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Dow Jones Newswires, and MarketWatch. Before that, she held a market intelligence and primary research position at Factiva (a Dow Jones & Reuters company).
Throughout her career, Heather has worked on many kinds of research, including word of mouth measurement, advertising effectiveness, brand strategy, market cannibalization, concept and advertising testing, customer satisfaction tracking, audience profiles, return on investment, qualitative research, and data mining. She is highly skilled in data analysis and report writing/analysis, and is technically proficient in a variety of market research-oriented systems.
Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing from The College of New Jersey.
Laura Keane, Associate Vice President
Laura Keane is Associate Vice President at the Keller Fay Group and has been with the company since 2007. She has nine years of project management experience at Keller Fay and previously at Edison Research, where she specialized in music testing research for radio playlist development and telephone surveys for US and overseas radio stations.
She manages all of Keller Fay’s custom word of mouth (WOM) research studies both in the US and in international markets, including Mexico, Argentina, Greece, Russia, Korea, Japan, the UK, and Australia. At Keller Fay, her primary focus has been on measuring new product WOM, pre/post campaign WOM, WOM in international markets, the “WOM value” of specific audiences, and the importance of WOM in the “purchase funnel.”
Laura’s research experience includes questionnaire design, fieldwork supervision, data processing/analysis, and the preparation of final presentations. She oversees studies from start to completion, working with clients to ensure that their research goals are met and that the study yields insightful findings.
She earned a Masters in Communications from Rutgers University in 2005, and is a graduate of The College of New Jersey.
