How Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ debut played out on social media

By Tanya Dua • September 9, 2015 •

Jon Stewart made a cameo and Jeb Bush got to campaign. Donald Trump, easy target that he is, got skewered. All of which made Stephen Colbert’s highly anticipated debut as the new host of the “Late Show” ripe for second screen success.

“Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Show” accumulated over 108,000 tweet mentions over yesterday and today, according to data crunched by Brandwatch. Amobee Brand Intelligence found that between 11:35 p.m. last night and 1:35 a.m. this morning, there were 73,467 tweets around “The Late Show.” Of these, over 16,000 were tweets about Colbert himself, more than 15,000 were tweets with the hashtag #LateShow and nearly 14,000 were tweets around the Late Show.

Here are the top takeaways from last night’s episode, according to Brandwatch and Amobee’s data:

The show has been received positively.
Stephen Colbert and “The Late Show” enjoy an overwhelmingly positive sentiment online. Brandwatch found that positive tweets outnumbered negative tweets at a rate of 6.3 to 1. Also, Amobee found that only 14 percent of the tweets in the two-hour period around the show were negative in sentiment, implying that fans are digging Colbert as the new host. The sentiment was 33 percent positive and 53 percent neutral.

OMG! That nod to Jon Stewart at the end of the episode was pure class @StephenAtHome . So much love #LateShow . Well done

— Greg Komorowski (@GregKomo) September 9, 2015

Jeb Bush was a winner among the guests.
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush appears to be the guest that made the biggest impression during the episode, with over 7,500 tweets mentioning him, followed by Jon Stewart in his umpire-themed cameo, garnering a little over 2,300 tweets. George Clooney’s appearance generated just around 2,000 tweets, and so did the segment skewering The Donald.

Sabra, Oreo stole the show among the brands.
While a variety of brands like Mercedes-Benz, Amazon Echo and several movies aired commercials during the show, hummus brand Sabra and Oreo enjoyed more native product placements. Colbert plugged Sabra as he promised to fulfill a blood oath sworn upon his “ancient cursed amulet,” he compared eating Oreos to telling jokes about Donald Trump: you tell yourself to make (and eat) just one more, but can’t stop.

According to Amobee, the in-show brand references boosted the volume of tweets around Oreo by 92 percent and around hummus and Sabra by 626 percent. That contributed to digital content engagement around Hummus in general increasing 78 percent and around Oreo to increase by 10 percent.