Searches for presidential candidates receive a boost following popular segments on The Daily Show
and The Colbert Report. After Mr. Romney’s statement at the Iowa State Fair that “corporations are people, my friend”, The Colbert Report aired a segment on August 11th purporting the support of Mr. Colbert (the character) for this position. On August 15th, Jon Stewart highlighted the manner in which the “mainstream media” was ignoring Congressman Paul’s success in the Iowa Straw Poll in particular and the campaign in general. In both cases, searches for variations of these candidates’ names enjoyed an uptick on the day following said segments; moreover, the search term variations indicate that web-users are specifically looking for Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart’s content related to the candidates.

The candidates may benefit from increased name recognition, but the real winners are ColbertNation.com and TheDailyShow.com, both of which received a bump in market share following the pieces.

We’re thirteen months away from Election Day and The Colbert Bump and Indecision 2012 are in full effect online; the question now is which campaign will effectively capitalize on this phenomenon to benefit their candidate with these two influential programs.
Thanks to Margot Bonner, Analyst on the Custom Data & Insights team for today’s analysis. For more data around the the current political landscape, please view our webinar “The Digital Road to the White House”.