Ford dumps NoTW. Nobody wants to be the brand associated with News of The World today.

Update 23:55 Tuesday 5 july - Note that in the Independent story: Ford pulls ads over hacking claims they state:

The company said it would work with alternative media instead, including papers in the News International group such as The Sun and its website.

The Sun is still a Murdoch property, in fact it's known as News Of The Worlds "sister paper", so while Ford walk away with maximum PR-boost for taking a stand, Murdoch&Co News International still gets their advertiser money. This isn't a proper boycott, Ford.


With the recent reveal that News of the world have compromised a police investigation by both listening to and deleting the voicemail messages of 13 year old murder victim Milly Dowler, in the hunt of a story, the hate is on. Full on. It's not the first time NoTW has "hacked" voicemails, might this be the last? How do you hit these scumbags where it really hurts?

Easy-- advertisers.

This morning Bitterwallet.com put up this PDF of emails to the NoTW advertisers execs, which I'm sure hundreds of people then used to email each and every one of them a piece of their mind. Now @marksweney at The Guardian is tweeting that Ford pulls ads and no brand wants to be blacklisted by consumers by association with NoTW. Even the interns at WHSmith are having a rough day as @rowandavies simple screendump shows how hundreds of twitteres are asking them "Do you consider it ethical to stock a newspaper prepared to hack a dead girls phone?" NoTW are brand-plague right now, you don't want to touch them.

"News Int execs tell me they fear there may have been worse examples of NOTW hacking than that of Milly Dowler's phone." - BBC's Robert Peston.

If any more advertisers walk away from NoTW/Sun, Murdoch might actually hurt, if only for a second. Remember how people said "enough is enough" when princess Diana died? Yeah. Lets see how long this lasts. We have twitter now.

Update It's getting worse for NoTW: Apparently Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile and Orange UK) are "reviewing" NOTW. Second biggest advertiser (after Sky): £1.5m.

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News of the World: Ford leads major companies in pulling advertising
Guardian.

Some of the UK's best-known brands have announced that they would be reviewing their advertising in the News of the World amid a growing public backlash over the paper's hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

Ford, npower, Halifax, T-Mobile and Orange became the first large companies to announce such action as the pressure increased on both the newspaper and those who advertise in its pages.

The energy company was the quickest to react to the fallout from the allegations, with an npower spokeswoman saying: "We note the concerns which have arisen on the back of fresh allegations of phone hacking against the News of the World. We are currently reviewing our options."

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