Grocery chain Instacart announced a slew of changes and upgrades on August 25. The company promised customers a series of inspirational content and experiences across the Instacart App. The new creative system features Grammy award-winning artist Lizzo and is centered around a “The World is Your Cart” campaign.
In an interview with Fast Company, Instacart’s CEO Fidji Simo admitted that to her, “it was obvious that our experience needed to evolve from transactional and utilitarian to inspirational.” And this is the beginning of just that. On August 28, Instacart officially launched the advert featuring Lizzo and the campaign creative.
Transforming Instacart and Lizzo’s Carts
Instacart is styling itself into a one-stop destination for all your needs. In the campaign, Lizzo buys everything from cherry ice cream to a charger to flowers. Talking of the campaign Simo mentioned that she tried out Instacart’s new offering in a trial run she did to figure out the ingredients she would need to prepare her daughter’s lunch. She says, “All of these things are like mini-stories that tell a universe of possibilities, and I think that’s at the root of a lot of the behaviors we see on the platform.”
“The World is Your Cart” campaign aims to bridge the gap between inspiration and reality – it will help consumers discover new products and give them access to curated content. Customers will get to see other’s carts and explore hand-picked guides on the Instacart app. The new shopping experience on the Instacart App is enhanced by added features like Brand Pages, Shoppable Display, and Shoppable Video ad formats.
Simo is focused on sustaining the momentum Instacart built during the pandemic. “Our business continues to grow,” Simo says. “Yes, the pandemic accelerated a little bit of that adoption, but fundamentally, the biggest trend, and the most important trend, is a trend toward more online adoption. The next five years are going to be about deepening that online adoption.” The World is Your Cart campaign will come to life through multiple activations across linear TV, OTT and OLV channels, print, podcasts and streaming audio, and paid and organic social media.
The grocery platform is launching an affiliate network to bring together creators, developers, and publishers that will help them monetize their platforms via Instacart. A spokesperson for the grocery platform told Fast Company that this feature will be called Instacart Tastemakers and allow creators to charge a commission of 3% for qualifying purchases. “Our job is to really connect with all of the options that they have, to make grocery shopping more affordable”, comments Simo, who is the driving force behind these changes.
The new cart is part of a revamp initiated by the company as it focuses on not just redefining shopping but also helping food-focused content creators and recipe developers make their websites commercially viable. In this manner, food bloggers and writers can instantly give their readers access to the ingredients mentioned in their recipes by linking them to Instacart
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Instacart reached its highest quarterly revenue ever in the second quarter of 2022, up 39% year over year to $621 million. The grocery platform also saw a 25% increase in orders placed compared to the same period a year ago. In March, Instacart had slashed its valuation from $39 billion to $24 billion, amidst rumors of an upcoming public offering. In May, the company quietly filed for an IPO and the offering is expected to hit the markets by 2023.
Before the company goes public, Simo is clear that she wants Instacart to help people rediscover the joy of trying new things and take the grocery platform from being transactional to inspirational.
