June 08, 2006

Wayne Rooney Injury, David Beckham Hairstyles and Peter Crouch Dance

With the World Cup kicking off Friday, we did some analysis of the most searched for players and the keywords combined with player names. Online, UK consumers are much more interested in Wayne Rooney's injury, David Beckham's hairstyle and Peter Crouch's robot dance than in stats or skill.

England fans breathed a collective sigh of relief yesterday when Wayne Rooney emerged with a smile. Concern about Rooney's chances of playing with the England squad in Germany has been high online as well as around the water cooler. Searches for the striker have centred on his progress toward recovery with the top UK search terms for Rooney in the four weeks ending 3rd June including 'wayne rooney injury', 'heal rooney' and 'wayne rooney metatarsal'.

Peter Crouch has become famous for his robot dance and is close to overtaking Ronaldinho as the most searched for player in the UK. Searches for 'peter crouch' ranked in third position among searches for football players last week, behind 'ronaldinho' and 'steven gerrard'.

Peter Crouch's rise in UK internet searches is almost entirely due to the England striker's robotic goal celebration, as seen after his goal against Hungary on 30th May. The top search terms for Peter Crouch are dominated by searches relating to his dance moves, with 'peter crouch dance', 'peter crouch robot', 'crouch robot' and 'peter crouch robot dance among the top search terms for the striker.

Beckham's next hairstyle has also piqued interest online. Amid growing speculation into the look that David Beckham will sport in the 2006 World Cup, searches for David Beckham focused on the player's hair style, with 'david beckham hairstyles' and 'david beckham hair' among the most popular search terms for the England captain.

Also fun - we also found that despite the build-up of media attention focusing on the 2006 World Cup, searches for 'big brother' have eclipsed searches for 'world cup' in the UK. With the launch of the new Big Brother series, searches for the reality TV programme have risen sharply, and ranked fourth among all UK search terms in the four weeks ending 3rd June 2006, compared to 'world cup', which ranked #182 among all UK search terms.

Posted by Heather Hopkins at 12:11 PM

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Posted by: Jon Ratcliffe at June 9, 2006 02:47 AM

Posted by: Mwesiga Job at March 12, 2007 05:16 AM

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