John Oliver struck again this week, this time tackling the food industry and how much hidden sugar they put in our food. In his end-of-show takedown rant — he’s previously targeted militarized police forces, internet service providers, and Scotland — he asked viewers to tweet at food companies and ask them to #ShowUsYourPeanuts.
You can watch the full clip here to get the play on words, but basically he wants manufacturers to declare hidden sugars on their food labels. A noble cause, if nothing else. We asked the team at Amobee to track the hashtag for us to see how it’s been performing against Oliver’s other calls to action. Here’s what they found:
- Content consumption, a measure of how often the hashtag has been online across mobile and social platforms, was the second highest peak. The first being Oliver’s “Sesame Street” skit on the prison system.
- Since Sunday’s episode, there have been over 6.25K tweets featuring the hashtag #ShowUsYourPeanuts. Of those tweets, the ones featuring positive sentiment outweighed the negative 2:1.
- Twitter activity spiked right after the airing of the episode. Although activity died down by Monday afternoon, there was upward pivot late yesterday afternoon which means, according to an Amobee spokesperson, “the hashtag has legs.”
- When looking at the growing associations to “John Oliver” in the last 3 days, “Call To Action” & “Food Industry” are the two most trending topics
Unsurprisingly, not many brands have divulged how many peanuts they’re putting in our mouths yet. But people have called out Oreo, Taco Bell, and others. More than anything else, it’s been a chance for seemingly innocent brands to show off their sugar content, though the peanuts thing is about sneaky sugars. Finding out those numbers might be more than a simple hashtag can handle.