CreatorIQ Report: Starbucks First in Creator-Led Marketing, But McDonald’s Leads in Impact

CreatorIQ, the end-to-end creator marketing platform powering efforts for over 900 brands and agencies, today released data showcasing how QSR brands leveraged creator-led social content to drive a combined $1.2 billion in Earned Media Value in 2022.

Leading the pack is Starbucks, which boasted a far larger creator community than any other QSR brand analyzed. In all, 30.5k creators published over 102.0k posts, which generated an estimated 4.6 billion Impressions. The Earned Media Value for this activity totaled $294.8M over the course of the year.

Starbucks’ creator community and post count both dwarfed the pack, doubling the figures claimed by No. 2 brand McDonald’s, which saw 14.0k creators publish over 46.0k posts. However, McDonald’s’ results suggest a more efficient and impactful effort, with over 5 billion impressions and a total EMV of $267.7M—nearly equal to Starbucks’ results with half the creators and posts.

While Starbucks saw less in-depth coverage from publications like Business Insider and Humans of New York, McDonald’s engaged with creators on a more visceral level, with TikTokers like Scuba Steph and Mystery Toy Time sharing fast food-specific content.

The remainder of the list fell sharply from there, with only No. 3 Chipotle generating more than 1 million engagements. These brands’ EMV totals fell from nine to eight digits, while creator and post counts leveled out to five-digit totals.

“Overall, the QSR results showed a very clear embrace of creator-led marketing strategies that support brands’ broader marketing efforts, as well as the massive opportunity that exists in the industry to better engage with the creator community,” said Brit Starr, SVP of Strategy at CreatorIQ. “Despite Starbucks and McDonalds existing at opposite ends of the TV ad-spend spectrum, they were nearly neck-and-neck in creator-led EMV totals.”