Commentary

Just an Online Minute... Auto Ads at Work

Remember that Ford ad I was talking about a few days ago, where as part of the automaker's $200 million push for the F-150 pickup, Ford took over the front pages of MSN, Yahoo and AOL?

It looks like their strategy paid off. Nielsen//NetRatings today reports that Ford's website traffic rose at home and at work, as a result of the campaign.

Traffic from home to Ford jumped 72% to 842,000 unique visitors, as compared to 489,000 visitors during the previous week. Falling below Nielsen//NetRatings reporting levels during the previous week, the site attracted 700,000 unique visitors from work during the week ending September 7. Top pages from both home and from work revealed that surfers were flocking to pages containing information about the 2004 F-150 truck.

Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance data revealed that the increase in Web traffic corresponded with the launch of Ford's ad campaign for the F-150 truck. During the last four weeks, the Ford F-150 had the fastest growing advertising impressions among the Ford products. Online ad impressions grew 16,550% from 2,000 impressions during the week ending August 10 to 333,000 impressions during the week ending August 31. Nielsen//NetRatings also reported that the Ford F-Series line was the most heavily advertised Ford product line online during this period.

"Ford has effectively used the Web with its online advertising campaigns and a resourceful Web site to promote the vehicle online," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Although it's not one of the top advertised products by Ford, as the F-Series, Expedition, Explorer, Ranger and Focus had more impressions during the same four-week period, the growth indicates Ford is aggressively promoting the new F-150 on the Internet."

How's that for an online advertising success story?

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