Mastercard is tapping foodie creators to drive awareness and adoption

Siegel told Digiday that the series, which centers on creators heading to somewhat under-the-radar restaurants in several U.S .cities, highlighting the people who run them and the food they make, and handing them a $10,000 grant, is a key aspect of the company’s strategy. 

“We shouldn’t just tell the story from one side by connecting creators with local businesses, but help more people discover these restaurants by showcasing the resilience behind every meal they serve,” she said. “We’re Mastercard, we have a loud voice, but creators are the ones taking over.”

Siegel confirmed the goal of the series is to “drive awareness, consideration, and discoverability for participating restaurants,” as well as giving them the tools and resources needed to scale – that way a creator-led business boom won’t overwhelm them. There’s plans to continue the series with different kinds of small businesses, led by the creators who highlight them in their content.

Nuvan and Mastercard confirmed that part of the partnership (financial details were not disclosed, including how Nuvan was paid and for how much) included creators like Nuvan posting the content on their social media feeds – Nuvan has several million followers across Instagram and TikTok. 

“They let me produce the content myself…it was really emotional,” said Nuvan, who visited a favorite Dominican restaurant of his in Queens, New York. He said the businesses he highlights in his content often get a “little jump” in customers after a video goes live, and the Mastercard series won’t just help boost them even more, but give them resources to prepare for that boost.  

Brad Hoos, ceo influencer marketing agency The Outloud Group, loves this kind of partnership. 

“It’s a win-win setup, at the end of the day brands are partnering with creators to make money and they shouldn’t apologize for it,” he said. “The essence of a good partnership is one plus one equals three, so when Mastercard is partnering with larger creators to help restaurants grow, they’re seeing and recognizing that growth…Now you have more authentic people who can talk about how Mastercard is helping them, and Mastercard can use their services to continue to help.”

Jo Wong, gm and cro at POP.STORE, pointed out how a series like this collapses two audiences (which are increasingly overlapping) into one social push. 

“Foodie creators aren’t just content producers anymore; a lot of them are small businesses, running a supper club, a pop-up, a product line, or a subscription service. The definition of small business has grown right alongside the definition of creator, and honestly the two are becoming the same person. That’s the real story here, not just the marketing story: the creator economy has grown as fast as it has precisely because the definition of who counts as a creator keeps expanding,” Wong said. 

For her, the series highlights how Mastercard is providing tools for creators and for small business owners, both of which have increasingly overlapping audiences – the product is infrastructure for growth, aimed at both creators who are becoming small business, and small business owners who are becoming creators. 

Olviia Ormos, founder of influencer marketing platform MAVN, also praised this approach. “ [Mastercard] going after their ICP through storytelling is far more interesting than watching a filmed professional video,” she said. “Creators aren’t just selling products anymore. They’ve become a distribution channel, so Mastercard is selecting creators for this series, to drive that community and their ICP towards getting a Mastercard, but they’re also benefiting largely from the creator’s distribution channel. 

When asked about the ultimate goal of a social series like this, and whether or not ROI is part of the conversation, Mastercard’s Siegel said the creators are helping drive discovery and awareness for participating restaurants, and that the company isn’t tracking individual consumers through creator content for marketing purposes. The goal is to craft a culture in which they’re seen not just as a credit card company or a technology company, but as one that really cares about small businesses — although it’s unclear how they plan to measure that. 

Those small businesses are increasingly including creators, which is why Mastercard is also hoping to pull more of them into their ecosystem. 

“You can’t just hang up a shingle and say ‘oh I care about creators’,” she said. “Now we’ve got a real flywheel behind us – we’re bringing grants, we’re attracting creators like Nick to do stuff with us, and that allows us to grow in other creator segments as well.” 

Wong warned of one potential downside: brands using creators only as distribution channels. 

“The most effective creator partnerships don’t feel like campaigns, they solve a real problem or teach someone something useful. That’s especially true when you’re speaking to entrepreneurs and small business owners who don’t have time for fluff,” she said.

“The biggest risk is treating creators as distribution channels rather than collaborators. Audiences can tell the difference immediately; in financial services, trust is everything. One tone-deaf partnership can undo a significant amount of goodwill…the moment this looks like a top-down campaign with talking points instead of creators actually using the product day to day, it stops working. Mastercard needs the program to grow slower than it could, in order to stay credible.”