Biggest Spike In Web Interest Since Romney 2012
You must have heard about the new show...
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Introduction
In a previous post, I looked at the biggest spike for google searches of the word “Mormon.“ Contrary to my belief, the biggest spike in the last 10 years was from the Netflix series Under the Banner of Heaven and not from any church ad campaigns or negative news publicity. Read more below.
Using that knowledge, I predicted that the Secret Lives of Mormon Lives would be a spike for Mormon news interest on the web, and I was right! It has been the biggest spike in Mormon web interest since Romney running for the presidency.
Additionally, it debuted as the most watched “unscripted season premiere of 2024 for Hulu“ even beating out the most recent “The Kardashians“ season. With its success, Hulu has renewed the show for another season.
But, did the show generate genuine interest in Mormonism? Let’s dig in…
Note: I waited until the end of September for this post since the charts we’ll look at today are aggregated by month and I wanted a complete data point for September.
Charts
First, let’s look at the chart of google searches containing “Mormon“ since 2004.
More people made searches containing the word Mormon on Google than ever before (at least of the available data since 2004). I think Romney’s run for presidency drew more interest; however, since the title of the show contained the word “Mormon,” you have people both searching for Mormons AND people searching for the show. Many people searched for the show on google with searches like “mormon wives,“ “mormon wives hulu,“ and other similar searches.
What we’re really interested in is the searches with the intent to learn about Mormonism. Are people actually interested in learning more about Mormonism from the show?
Searches in the next images I deemed from searches with more interest in learning about Mormonism.
First, I assumed searches containing the word “church“ or “religion“ would be more focused on learning about Mormonism. We see the biggest spikes in all three searches since November of 2012 (Romney election)
“Mormon Religion“
“The Mormon Church“
“The Church of Mormon“ I found out this is actually a fairly common search
As you can see in all of these, this last data point in September was the biggest spike for these searches since Romney! These are fairly general searches about Mormonism though. Let’s see if we can hone in further on genuine interest in learning…
“What is a Mormon”
“What are Mormons”
“Mormon Beliefs”
“What do Mormons believe in”
In this analysis, I learned that a lot people spell “MorMAN“ instead of “Mormon“ presumably when they first are looking Mormonism up 😂
“Morman”
“What is Morman
“Who was Morman”
Ok it does seem like people are interested in learning more… but, are people actually taking action from their learning?
I tested quite a few searches like “call mormon missionaries,“ “mormon missionaries phone number,“ “baptize me mormon,“ or “baptize me morMAN“😂, but turns out not very many people search for these at baseline.
However, I did find people search for some of these a lot more often
“free book of mormon”
“go to Mormon church”
“Mormon church near me”
And, while there are likely active members making some of these searches, members are perhaps less likely to use the word Mormon given the recent name re-emphasis. Also, why would it be spiking this September as opposed to any other time? To me, it suggests that there may be more interest among non-members in attending a Mormon church.
While people are clearly searching Mormonism more as seen in the earlier charts, obviously not everyone wants to go to church or get a Book or Mormon after their search. That being said, these searches seems to be higher than at baseline which suggests there may be some conversion of people actually learning more about the church from the show.
There is at least one person searched “Book of Mormon Baptize me“ in September of 2024
Was this person drawn in by the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, we’ll never know for sure…
Conclusion
Here are a few summarizing thoughts:
Among the US general population, there is more interest in Mormonism now than in the last 10+ years (since Romney ran for president in 2012) very likely drawn from the new Hulu show Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
A lot of people seems genuinely curious about Mormon beliefs with large spikes in “What do Mormons believe in,“ “What are Mormons,“ and “Who was Mormon.“
While not as large of spikes, more people have searched in September of 2024 “Free Book of Mormon,“ “Go to Mormon church,“ and “Mormon church near me“ compared to the last few years. Clearly not everyone who googles Mormonism also searches these ones, but there are more people searching these than on average.
Are you convinced that the new Hulu show inspired the most genuine interest and curiosity since Mitt Romney about the Mormon church?
The church released a statement disassociating the church’s members and the participants in the show. For those who have watched the show and now seeing these stats, do you feel like it was negative publicity for the church?