Like us at
Around The Net in Brand Marketing, the folks at
Brandweek seem a bit perplexed by what turned out to be their most-read stories of 2008. We surmise that our
most-eyeballed story -- a piece that gently chided all the speculation churned
up by Steve Jobs announcing that he would not attend an Apple trade show -- was probably fueled by the item being picked up by a social bookmarking site with a technology bent.
Their
guess is that putting "
Playboy" into the headline of a story helps to propel Google searches (No. 5: "Skoal Hooks Up with
Playboy") and that "people like
reading about cream cheese-filled bagels" (No. 3: "Kraft's $100 Million Idea: Cream Cheese-Filled Bagels.") I think they're on to something.
At the top of
Brandweek's list is a story about the National Basketball Association's "most ambitious campaign ever" for its playoffs coupled with a story about the Women's National
Basketball Association having added some sponsors to its roster. I've been writing headlines for more decades than I care to recall, and "The Game: Playoff Push 'Splits' NBA Players;
Kia, IHOP Join WNBA Roster" would not, in my book, qualify as an engaging one, but the server records have spoken.
Rounding out the Top Five, a story about Dominos' and General
Mills' sponsorship of the movie "The Dark Knight" took second place, and a piece reporting that Ruby Tuesday would blow up its last old-style restaurant live on the Internet came in
fourth
advertisement
advertisement
.
Read the whole story at Brandweek »