Chipotle: #GuacDance, Creator Class, and what the numbers look like now

November 8, 2026

Chipotle was one of the first big brands on TikTok, and it reports social impressions in its executive pay review. We checked its account and hashtags.

Background

For National Avocado Day in 2019, Chipotle's #GuacDance challenge drew more than 250,000 submissions and nearly 430 million video starts in six days, and Chipotle served a record 802,000 sides of guac source. In 2021 it launched a Creator Class of 14 creators with free food, paid brainstorms and priority for paid campaigns source. Its 2025 proxy statement credits social work with 70 billion impressions, up 61% source.

Then and now

The tag shows fewer videos today than the submissions Chipotle reported in 2019. Some entries used other tags, and some have been deleted since.

Strategy now

• Deals as content. Two of the top three TikToks announce offers: Boorito on Halloween (13.4M views) and free guac on National Avocado Day (12.2M).
• Odd collabs. The top TikTok, with the London Vegetable Orchestra, drew 15.4M views.
• Short. A median of 8 seconds per TikTok.

Lessons

1. Tie challenges to a real-world moment. A holiday plus a free item gives people a reason to post and to visit.
2. Formalize creators. A creator class turns one-off posts into a bench.
3. Put social in the scorecard. Chipotle measures impressions at the executive level.

How we pulled the numbers

About 9 credits of ScrapeIO calls, the same ones any script or AI agent can make:

curl "https://scrapeio.com/v1/tiktok/profile?handle=chipotle" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"
curl "https://scrapeio.com/v3/tiktok/profile/videos?handle=chipotle" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"   # 3 pages
curl "https://scrapeio.com/v2/instagram/user/posts?handle=chipotle" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"  # 2 pages
curl "https://scrapeio.com/v1/tiktok/search/hashtag?hashtag=guacdance" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"

Engagement rate is (likes + comments + shares) / views for each video, and we report the median so one viral post does not skew it. To run the same audit on any brand from Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, install the skills with npx skills add xhoantran/scrapeio-agent and ask for a competitor social audit.

Sources

Social numbers pulled through the ScrapeIO API on 8 November 2026 (UTC); they change daily. Everything else is from the sources below. This is an independent analysis of public data, not affiliated with or endorsed by the brand.

• https://newsroom.chipotle.com/2019-08-01-Chipotles-National-Avocado-Day-Celebrations-Smash-Records
• https://ir.chipotle.com/2021-09-09-Chipotle-Introduces-Its-First-Ever-Creator-Class,-Gives-One-Fan-The-Chance-To-Join-The-Exclusive-Group
• https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058090/000119312523095757/d405643ddef14a.htm
• https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058090/000114036125015614/ny20039347x771_def14a.htm