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They were a symbol of hope for the return of a loved one long before the Tony Orlando song. (Remember the movie "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" starring John Wayne?) And please note that the record was released just about the time that the POW's were coming home from Viet Nam. I was there when it first hit the charts, and there was a general feeling that the "prison" could mean the Hanoi Hilton as much as anything else since there was no direct reference as to why the guy was incarcerated and why he's getting out now. So there was a small-scale fad for the ribbons amongst the families and friends of the returnees.
Come the first Gulf War in 1991, a new wave of patriotic hype propelled the song and the ribbons into the forefront of pop culture once again. And for the last couple decades they've become a staple piece of home decor whenever the country seems to need them. More recently, they've morphed from actual ribbons (cloth or plastic) wrapped around actual trees to the familiar stick-ons based on the design of the AIDS ribbon. Somewhere there's a good deep-think story in all this...
