Instacart Wants to Co-Create Ads With Brands

For its first Super Bowl ad in 2025, Instacart recruited brand mascots like the Pillsbury Doughboy, Chester Cheetah, and the Jolly Green Giant to help bring its message to the Big Game stage. Now, it wants to invite everyone to the party. At Cannes Lions, the grocery delivery app is launching Instacart Ads Studio, formalizing an offering based on previous brand partnerships like the Super Bowl ad that featured nine brands. In another example, Instacart’s stop-motion holiday campaign starred Kerrygold, Oatly, Native, and Duracell. Instacart also announced a TikTok-style inspiration feed for branded content that will live on its platform. “You ultimately come to Instacart to buy products, many of which are CPGs,” Laura Jones, chief marketing officer at Instacart, told ADWEEK. “Whenever we can go to market in partnership with the actual products on our platform, it makes our strong story stronger, too.” Local Produce goes global From the beginning, Instacart knew that its marketing strategy should include the brands featured on its platform, Jones explained. Brand collaborations have become a large part of the work that the company’s in-house agency, Local Produce, creates. Local Produce has worked on more than 420 campaigns featuring brands that sell on Instacart’s platform. “This isn't just something we're doing casually, this is actually a full-service offering,” Jones said. “We need to launch formally, and take it out of almost a skunk-works, beta mode, and go mainstream and make sure that our entire ecosystem knows that this is something available to really any kind of partner.” There are two different ways brands can engage in Instacart Ads Studio, Jones explained. First, brands can appear as a character of sorts in an Instacart campaign. For example, Instacart featured mascots in the Super Bowl, highlighted nostalgic foods in a campaign called “Summer Like It’s 1999” last year, and embedded products into stop-motion videos for the holiday campaign. Second, brands can build bespoke campaigns to run on Instacart, created by Local Produce. That could look like Oscar Mayer’s “Sing to Pay” sweepstakes, which let shoppers sing the B-O-L-O-G-N-A jingle to pay for a package of sliced meat rounds on Instacart. Or, it could look like free salad kits from BrightFarms to celebrate National Quitters Day on the second Friday in January, when people tend to throw in the towel on their New Year’s resolutions. According to Instacart’s own data, the brand integrations in Instacart seasonal campaigns can extend a campaign’s reach to 77% of consumers who haven’t been reached with auction-based ads. Custom campaigns drive an average of 93% new-to-brand engagement, according to Instacart. After the holiday campaign, Kerrygold saw double-digit sales growth on Instacart, and became the most searched butter brand on the platform, Jones said. Bringing short-form video discovery into Instacart Instacart is also piloting TikTok-style, short-form video within its app. “Immersive Feed,” as the offering is dubbed, will feature scrollable, branded content between five and 30 seconds long, focused on recipe and meal inspiration. Hellmann’s, Kettle & Fire, Rachael Ray’s Nutrish, and Siete are currently testing the vertical. The ad offering will be available to all advertisers through Instacart’s Ads Manager later this year.

Cannes Lions

Instacart Wants to Co-Create Ads With Brands

The grocery delivery app is also debuting a TikTok-style inspo feed

UNLOCK FULL ACCESS

Kathryn Lundstrom

Commerce

Walmart Tests Placing Marketplace Inventory In Stores For Pickup and Delivery

Walmart Adds One-Hour Express Pickup Ahead Of Holidays

Walmart Is Betting on MrBeast and Holiday Films To Fuel Its Streaming Business

Walmart Lays Out Its Plan to Take Over TV Advertising

ADWEEK Commerce Advantage: Amazon's AI-Driven Future Leaves Some Buyers Wary of Losing Control

Brands Can Expect a Longer Holiday Shopping Season and Thriftier Consumers

Beyond Coffee: The Starbucks Merchandise Collabs Building New Brand Love

Albertsons' Retail Media Head Leaves Grocery Giant

TikTok Adds an AI Shopping Assistant and Lets Users Buy Direct From Brands