Following Tyres & Accessories’ pioneering publication of online tyre brand penetration rankings last year, T&A has again enlisted the assistance of Cambridge-based e-marketing specialists Envisional. The report exclusively published in this month’s magazine shows some marked changes in the relatively short time since the 2005 survey.

While Michelin remained top of the virtual pile in terms of quantity, Pirelli beat the French tyre giant in terms of the quality of references to the brand. Goodyear and Dunlop showed that the two brands’ marketing investments have paid off. They remained relatively flat in terms of prominence, but made sharp improvements in terms of sentiment. In this respect (see magazine for sentiment chart) Dunlop jumped from fifth to second place overall, while Goodyear rose from sixth to fourth. Continental took the largest hit of the premium manufacturers, falling from third to sixth on the sentiment index. Interestingly, Uniroyal achieved the lowest number of negative references overall.