• by October 11, 2000

With all the hot water Firestone is in lately, you'd think they would be running tons of traditional media ads to stifle the panic. At least that's what I expected to happen a long time ago.

Well, they chose a slightly different route, which in some sense means good news for us online advertisers. According to the latest numbers from AdRelevance, Ford Motor Company's recall banner ad is currently the number one banner on the Internet.

Led by the single ad, Ford quickly ascended the charts to become the 20th ranked online ad spender, AdRelevance says, joining the league of web advertising giants including Amazon, Network Solutions and Capital One.

According to the report, Ford spent approximately $3.5 million on the recall ad campaign online and the recall banner accounted for 44% of all automotive online ad spending during the week of Sept. 18 - the same week the recall banner skyrocketed to number one.

Also, Ford's simple banner ad appeared on more than 200 sites, including popular portal and information sites such as iWon, Yahoo!, CNN and MSNBC.

As Charlie Buchwalter, VP of media research for AdRelevance, said, "The take away for advertisers is simple: while popular media can spread bad news, a broad reach online advertising campaign can counter that, and may even help polish a tarnished image."