Instacart is leaning further into personalization with a new campaign that transforms everyday shopping decisions into full-blown musical fantasies.
Created by BBDO Chicago in partnership with Local Produce, the brand’s in-house agency, the work builds on Instacart’s Super Bowl debut of its Preference Picker feature. That launch, featuring Ben Stiller and Benson Boone, focused on a surprisingly relatable detail: getting the perfect banana.
It turns out that detail matters. Instacart has sold more than 1.8 billion bananas and logged over 32 million shopper notes, ranging from “not ripe” to “perfectly ripe”. The takeaway is simple. Grocery shopping is personal.
Directed by Kate Hollowell of Epoch Films, the work plays with contrast. The mundane act of grocery shopping collides with larger-than-life scenarios, from over-the-top family dynamics to surreal visual gags, all rooted in the idea that preferences shape the experience.
In the first, a dad goes full Y2K emo-frontman, joining a band just to make sure his kid gets deli meat sliced extra-thin. It is all in service of building the perfect sandwich.
Next, “Sea Shanty” follows a woman on a nautical quest for ready-to-cook fish, boarding a boat called Instacart in search of peak freshness. Along the way, things get weird in the best way, including a questionable sailor-merman tattoo.
And then there is the standout. A mom taps into her inner metalhead, complete with pyrotechnics, as she celebrates scoring groceries without markups.
Will Wilson, VP creative director at BBDO Chicago shared, “Grocery preferences are like musical taste. Very personal, and sometimes equally as surprising. Like, who knew Mom was into pyrotechnics before she was packing lunches? Or that granny made a guy walk the plank for not eating his peas? Our cast of characters has these very real, very human grocery problems to solve. They also have this desire for quality and affordability. Our job was to match the practicality of Instacart’s new preference features with the absurdity and musicality that our characters envision themselves living, turning the mundane into cinematic moments.”
Kate Hollowell, Epoch Films, said, “These films capture the feeling of living life on your own terms—getting things just how you like them and finally having your child’s respect for getting the deli meat thickness just right. This is an Instacart-fuelled journey through musical dreams that become a reality. Even if you have to explain to your grandson why you have a tattoo of a sailor merman, you’re just an evolving, modern woman, and they’ll have to get used to it.”
The campaign will run through the summer across the U.S. and Canada, spanning TV, digital video, audio, podcasts, and social.
The message is clear. Even the smallest choices, like how ripe you want your bananas, can feel like a performance when they are finally done right.
CREDITS:
BRAND: Instacart
AGENCY: BBDO, Chicago
VP, Creative Director: Will Wilson
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Epoch Films
Director: Kate Hollowell
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