KFC leads Spain’s brand attention index as interactions fall 16% industry-wide

IAB Spain on June 30, 2026 printed Marcas y Atencion Social 2026: datos, tendencias y aprendizajes, a report constructed on 18.9 billion views and 159 million interactions throughout 1,163 Spanish manufacturers, and the headline discovering cuts in opposition to the {industry}’s regular intuition to chase attain. Views rose 17 p.c yr over yr, but interactions throughout the identical model set fell 16 p.c, in keeping with IAB Spain. Content material saturation, in the meantime, multiplied by 5.2 occasions and channel fragmentation grew 73 p.c, the affiliation reported. KFC topped the ensuing model rating, Purple Bull adopted in second place, and the examine frames the hole between visibility and response because the defining pressure for Spanish entrepreneurs heading into the second half of 2026.

The report was produced by IAB Spain, the Spanish digital promoting and advertising and marketing commerce affiliation, in partnership with Epsilon Applied sciences, a Publicis Groupe-owned knowledge and id firm. It attracts on a panel known as Panel SAI 1000 Marcas Espana, which regardless of its identify tracked 1,163 Spanish multi-category manufacturers throughout 3,777 social profiles on Instagram, Fb, TikTok, X, YouTube, and LinkedIn, analyzing 159,000 particular person posts between January and Could 2026 and evaluating the outcomes in opposition to the identical interval the yr earlier than.

A widening hole between attain and response

The numbers on the heart of the report describe two curves shifting in reverse instructions. Whole Client Digital Contact Factors, IAB Spain’s mixture measure of each contact level throughout the tracked digital ecosystems, reached 19.16 billion, up 16.4 p.c versus the prior yr. Views particularly climbed to 18.9 billion, a acquire of 16.98 p.c. Interactions, nonetheless, dropped to 159 million, down 15.99 p.c, and interactions occurring on exterior channels, which means dialog generated by hashtags and person mentions relatively than brand-owned posts, fell even additional, down 17.73 p.c to 86.8 million.

Just one indicator within the core dataset moved firmly in the identical path as views: follower progress. Incremental followers rose 59 p.c yr over yr to 18.4 million, in keeping with the report. Audiences are subscribing to model accounts at a quicker clip than they’re truly responding to what these accounts submit, which is exactly the disconnect the report’s authors got down to measure.

IAB Spain frames the sample in stark phrases in its personal abstract of the findings, arguing that visibility grows whereas consideration have to be earned. That framing offers the report its methodological spine: two indices, known as DAI (Digital Consideration Index) and SAI (Social Consideration Index), designed to maneuver measurement away from uncooked publicity and towards a model’s precise share of viewers response relative to rivals in its class.

How the indices are constructed

DAI is the broader of the 2 constructs. It combines eight enter classes, specifically social media, social listening, search, influencers, internet visitors, app visitors, public relations, and point-of-sale expertise, then multiplies the sum by what the report calls an EDI issue earlier than arriving at a composite rating. SAI is the narrower, social-specific model, expressed by IAB Spain as model share of the mixed whole of interactions, exterior mentions, views, and social listening quantity, measured in opposition to each different model in the identical aggressive set.

Making use of SAI to the panel produced a ranked checklist. Purple Bull recorded the best CDTP-based share at 3.56 p.c, however KFC led on the SAI composite at 3.10 p.c as soon as the interplay and external-mention weighting was utilized, adopted by Mahou at 2.61 p.c, Druni at 2.26 p.c, and Lidl at 2.13 p.c. The rest of the highest twenty included Kiko, Carrefour, Burger King, Dia, El Corte Ingles, Zara, Samsung, McDonald’s, Estrella Galicia, Iberdrola, IKEA, Primor, Futbol Emotion, Sephora, and Pantene, although every particular person share sat under 1.7 p.c, illustrating how thinly interplay quantity is unfold as soon as almost 1,200 manufacturers compete for it.

Retail and FMCG pull nearly 60 p.c of the entire

Sector-level outcomes present a market skewed closely towards two classes. Retail manufacturers captured 34.5 p.c of whole SAI share, and fast-moving client items manufacturers took 24.9 p.c, which means the 2 sectors mixed absorbed near 60 p.c of all measured social consideration in Spain throughout the examine window. Power adopted at 3.5 p.c, automotive at 3.4 p.c, trend at 3.1 p.c, banking at 2.1 p.c, insurance coverage at 1.8 p.c, telecommunications at 1.3 p.c, and airways at 0.6 p.c.

In response to IAB Spain’s personal account of the report, retail and FMCG collectively mix frequency, cultural presence, and a persistent capability to generate dialog via content material, creators, campaigns, and experiences, which explains why the 2 classes dominate the rating so fully. Inside retail, the top-ranked manufacturers by CDTP have been Lidl at 564.3 million, Druni at 484.7 million, Carrefour at 281.6 million, and KFC at 175.4 million; inside vitality, Iberdrola led with 284.5 million CDTPs, forward of Repsol at 162 million.

Interplay high quality varies sharply by platform

Maybe essentially the most operationally helpful part of the report breaks interplay share down by particular person platform relatively than treating social media as a single undifferentiated channel, and the ensuing image argues in opposition to a one-size-fits-all content material technique.

Instagram concentrated 69.6 p.c of interactions throughout the whole panel, cementing its place as the first engagement floor for Spanish manufacturers. Inside Instagram particularly, KIKO led interplay share at 5.55 p.c, adopted by Zara at 5.48 p.c and KFC at 5.20 p.c, with Druni fourth at 4.09 p.c. Reels emerged because the standout format inside Instagram: photograph posts generated 2,721.75 common interactions per submit in opposition to 2,320.86 for Reels and only one,243.29 for carousels, although Reels’ mixture of attain and relative effectivity, in keeping with the report, makes it essentially the most cost-effective format for scaling outcomes.

TikTok instructed a special story. The platform accounted for 39.93 p.c of whole views throughout the panel, positioning it as the invention layer of the ecosystem relatively than its dialog layer. KFC’s TikTok interplay share reached 14.31 p.c, greater than 4 factors forward of Purple Bull in second place at 10.56 p.c, and Lidl in third at 5.53 p.c. A separate chart monitoring KFC’s TikTok efficiency throughout 5 years reveals the model shifting from a 0.9 p.c share and Fifteenth-place rating in 2021 to a number-one place by 2022, a rank it has held yearly since, closing 2025 at 19.1 p.c share on the platform.

X (previously Twitter) confirmed essentially the most excessive focus of any platform measured. KFC alone accounted for 60.50 p.c of whole interplay share on X throughout the tracked model set, with Lidl a distant second at 14.36 p.c and GAME third at 2.87 p.c. No different platform within the examine produced a single-brand share anyplace near that stage, suggesting {that a} small variety of accounts, relatively than the platform’s model inhabitants broadly, are driving almost all measurable engagement there.

Collaboration outperforms exercise quantity

One of many report’s extra counterintuitive findings considerations the connection between how a lot content material a model produces in partnership with outdoors creators and the way a lot interplay that content material truly returns. Collaborative content material, which means posts made collectively with influencers, celebrities, or sponsorship companions, represented solely 15.4 p.c of whole model exercise throughout the panel however generated 32 p.c of all interactions, and the same sample held for collaborative exercise extra broadly, the place 15.4 p.c of posting quantity produced 32 p.c of engagement.

IAB Spain’s public abstract of the findings describes collaboration as having grow to be an accelerator of relevance, combining the credibility that creators and celebrities carry, the pure integration of merchandise inside present content material codecs, and entry to communities that exist already round podcasts and sponsorship properties. The report teams profitable collaboration methods into six recurring varieties: celeb partnerships, influencer-product integrations, sponsorships, recipe or usage-demonstration content material, co-branding, and podcast appearances.

Case research behind the numbers

The report contains eight detailed marketing campaign case research, every scored by the share of a model’s whole interactions the marketing campaign generated. McDonald’s, in partnership with streetwear model EME Studios, launched a restricted hoodie of two,600 items throughout March 2026, supported by a pop-up conversion of EME Studios’ Fuencarral Road flagship retailer in Madrid right into a themed McDonald’s restaurant on March 21 and 22, plus QR-code patches redeemable without cost merchandise via the MyMcDonald’s loyalty app. The marketing campaign generated 161,604 interactions and 27.5 million views throughout 15 posts, representing 34 p.c of McDonald’s whole interactions for the interval, the biggest share of any single case examine within the report.

Samsung’s collaboration with footballer Alexia Putellas, tied to the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Galaxy Watch8, used AI instruments together with Gemini and a function the report calls Nano Banana to recreate profession moments that have been by no means truly photographed. Regardless of working simply 5 posts throughout a single month, the marketing campaign accounted for 22 p.c of Samsung’s whole interactions, producing 10,947 interactions and 97.4 million views. Alpro’s Matcha Coconut launch, combining influencer Belen Esteban with an in-person Matcha Studio experiential area, produced 240,050 interactions and 53.4 million views throughout 29 posts over two months, representing 31 p.c of Alpro’s whole interplay quantity. Lidl’s tapas voting contest with content material platform SpainSays and chef Daniel Valls generated a relatively modest 16,386 interactions from 10 posts, however the report highlights its serialized format, during which every weekly episode features as a self-contained piece of content material whereas nonetheless constructing towards a cumulative narrative, as a structural template different manufacturers might adapt.

What the report recommends for the remainder of 2026

IAB Spain’s conclusions describe a shift the report calls shifting from At all times On to At all times Drop, which means a transfer away from steady, high-frequency posting and towards concentrated, memorable moments constructed round cultural relevance. The report proposes 5 parts it considers vital for a drop-style marketing campaign to succeed: activating prescription via collaboration with present influencers, adopting realism and closeness relatively than closely polished promoting codes, guaranteeing omnichannel presence connecting offline and on-line touchpoints, constructing real experiential components so a marketing campaign is lived relatively than solely watched, and sustaining consistency via two to a few main drops per yr relatively than one-off stunts.

The report closes with ten numbered conclusions, a number of of which reinforce factors made earlier within the knowledge. Amongst them: Instagram builds model affinity whereas TikTok builds group, which means every platform performs a definite perform contained in the funnel relatively than serving as interchangeable stock; the Reel format stays the one largest driver of visibility for manufacturers capable of mix attain with humanized, approachable content material; and audiences, within the report’s personal phrasing, aren’t saturated a lot as bored, which means the amount of impressions is just not the constraint on efficiency a lot because the sameness of what fills them.

Why this issues for entrepreneurs

The Spanish findings sit inside a broader European measurement dialog that Spain’s CTV market hits 95% penetration – but ads still face a trust gap and IAB Spain’s first SSP guide exposes the 41% working media problem have already documented this yr: Spanish advertisers are constantly discovering that uncooked publicity metrics, whether or not views, impressions, or programmatic bid quantity, masks a a lot smaller pool of genuinely productive engagement beneath. The SSP information discovered solely 41 p.c of programmatic spend reaches measurable, viewable impressions; this social consideration report finds a parallel hole between how many individuals see a model’s content material and what number of truly reply to it.

The report additionally lands weeks after IAB Spain’s personal annual social media examine, which discovered that Spain’s social media users jump to 7.2 platforms – but 42% quit at least one, a sample of rising platform adoption paired with rising abandonment that helps clarify why interplay charges may fall at the same time as follower counts and views climb. Customers are spreading their consideration throughout extra surfaces whereas committing much less of it to any single one, which is in keeping with a market the place content material saturation has multiplied by 5.2 occasions, as this report individually discovered.

For companies and in-house advertising and marketing groups working in Spain, the sensible takeaway is much less about any particular person model’s rating and extra about measurement self-discipline. A marketing campaign producing thousands and thousands of views however a shrinking interplay price is just not, on this knowledge, a marketing campaign in decline; it might merely be competing in a market the place views have grow to be structurally simpler to generate than real response. Manufacturers equivalent to KFC, which posted the best SAI share alongside essentially the most excessive focus of X interactions within the panel, and McDonald’s, whose EME Studios collaboration produced over a 3rd of the model’s whole interactions from a single limited-run marketing campaign, supply proof that concentrated, creator-involved, culturally timed exercise outperforms steady-state posting on the metric that IAB Spain argues truly issues: whether or not anybody responds.

Timeline

• January 2026: IAB Spain’s monitoring window for the Panel SAI 1000 Marcas Espana begins.
• Could 2026: Information assortment for the panel closes, protecting 159,000 posts throughout 3,777 profiles.
• March 21 to 22, 2026: McDonald’s and EME Studios run their pop-up retailer activation in Madrid as a part of the hoodie drop marketing campaign referenced within the report.
• June 30, 2026: IAB Spain publishes Marcas y Atencion Social 2026: datos, tendencias y aprendizajes, alongside the underlying presentation deck.

Abstract

Who: IAB Spain, the Spanish digital promoting and advertising and marketing commerce affiliation, in partnership with Epsilon Applied sciences, printed the report. KFC, Purple Bull, Mahou, Druni, and Lidl led the ensuing model consideration rating.

What: A examine titled Marcas y Atencion Social 2026 monitoring 1,163 Spanish manufacturers throughout 3,777 social profiles, discovering that views rose 17 p.c yr over yr to 18.9 billion whereas interactions fell 16 p.c to 159 million, alongside two new measurement frameworks known as DAI and SAI.

When: The monitoring interval ran from January via Could 2026, in contrast in opposition to the equal interval in 2025. IAB Spain printed the report on June 30, 2026.

The place: The analysis covers the Spanish social media market particularly, drawing on model exercise throughout Instagram, TikTok, X, Fb, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Why: The report responds to a widening hole between attain and response in Spanish digital advertising and marketing, the place content material saturation multiplied 5.2 occasions and channel fragmentation grew 73 p.c, prompting IAB Spain to argue that manufacturers should shift from steady posting towards fewer, culturally related, collaboration-driven campaigns able to producing real viewers response relatively than passive publicity.