Audience research
Part of How do you run audience research for food creator partnerships?
Nine checks for food creator partnerships competitor research
A nine-point checklist for food creator partnerships competitor research, covering which rivals to watch, what to log and how to brief a first paid test.
What to take away
- Most teams open a creator database and sort by follower count. That answers the wrong question.
- Competitor research works better as a fixed desk exercise: same rivals, same date window, same fields.
- Log format, cadence, disclosure and comment tone, not reach figures you cannot verify.
- Turn each repeated pattern into one hypothesis and fund a single paid test against it.
Build the comparison set from your own audience
Start where your customers already are. The rivals worth studying are the ones your audience follows and buys from. The loudest account in the category is often the wrong model to copy. A rival your audience has never heard of is a poor benchmark, however many followers it has.
Shortlist rivals by overlap
- Accounts in comments and saved posts
- Tagged mentions that repeat
- Local operators you lose bookings to
- Stop at a fixed number, e.g. ten
Shortlist rivals by overlap, not by size
Write down the accounts that appear repeatedly in your comments, saved posts and tagged mentions. Add the local operators you lose bookings to. Stop at a fixed number, for example ten rivals, so each one gets the same attention.
Before you fix that list, it helps to know who your audience really is; our guide to audience research for partnerships sets out how to establish that.
Fix one review window for everyone
Choose a window, for example the last eight weeks, and log only posts inside it. Seasonal menus and event periods distort comparisons, so flag them. A settled window makes the second pass much faster than the first. Write the start and end dates at the top of the ledger so nobody drifts.
Log the same fields for every creator post
Capture format, cadence, product and disclosure
For each post, note the platform, the format, the length, the product shown and whether the creator labelled it as advertising. Disclosure wording is covered in the CAP Code rules on recognising marketing. The gap between rivals is a useful signal about how strict each brand is.
Where a creator prepares food on camera, add a column for food safety. Cross-contamination is one risk to watch, and FSA guidance on avoiding cross-contamination explains what a business kitchen should do. Note whether the rival's creator shows separate boards, clean hands and covered storage.
Read the comments before the view counts
Comments reveal whether the audience wanted the dish, the creator or the discount. Sort them into questions about price, location, dietary needs and delivery. Ten minutes per post is usually enough.
Platform guidance shapes this too. TikTok's industry solutions pages for food and beverage show the formats it pushes to brands, which helps you separate a creator's own choice from a platform nudge.
Turn the patterns into one testable brief
Price the test before you brief it
Cost moves with creator size, usage rights and exclusivity. Work from a labelled illustration: a mid-tier creator paid £400 for one reel plus a month of usage rights. Compare that with a repeat order, not with a rival's spend you cannot see.
If you want to know what your own customers notice, ask them; the customer interview method for partnerships covers how to run those conversations without leading the answers.
Write the brief as a checklist
One page is enough. State the dish, the format, the deadline, the disclosure wording and the measure you will check. Then leave tone to the creator.
Terms worth agreeing before the first brief:
- Creator ledger: a shared sheet of rival posts with identical columns.
- Disclosurethe label that shows a post is paid.
- Fithow closely a creator's audience matches your buyers.
- Test budgetthe sum set aside for one collaboration, agreed in advance.
Common questions
How many rivals should I track?
Ten is a workable number for a small team, and fewer is fine if the local market is small. The point is consistency across rivals, not volume.
Do I need paid tools to run this?
No. A spreadsheet and a fixed review window cover most of it. Paid tools help with scale, not with the judgement about fit.
How long should the first pass take?
Allow half a day per rival for the first pass and much less afterwards. The glossary and columns do the heavy lifting once they exist.
What should I do with the findings?
Pick one repeated pattern and fund a single paid test against it. Compare the result with your own customer feedback rather than a rival's engagement figures.
