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Instacart: Unlocking Full-Funnel Results via Nostalgic Creator Storytelling

Unaided Brand Awareness

Purchase IntenT

Avg. Reels ER

Goal

Position Instacart as a culturally-relevant and emotionally-resonant brand that empowers consumers to live in the moment by handling their summer shopping needs.

Insight

Consumers are struggling with the rising cost of groceries and are often nostalgic for the prices and foods of decades gone by.

Strategy

Instacart was offering consumers a summer promotion combining the nostalgia-fueled joy of 1999 prices with the convenience of modern-day delivery. So, we came up with a 3-pronged creator-led strategy to drive awareness of the deal and relevance for the brand, anchored on playful, nostalgia-driven storytelling:

  • Organic creator posting to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, tapping into creators’ followings, as well as their storytelling abilities.
  • Asset optimization of organic creator content for use in lower-funnel paid social campaigns across Meta, TikTok, and Snap.
  • Additional creator generated content (CGC), leveraging lower following creators for efficient production of “made for paid” assets for use across platforms.

Overall, we created 76 assets spotlighting Instacart’s throwback deals. We inspired creators with several creative ways in, including Delivery Roulette (surprise snack hauls), 1 Day vs. 1 Month (’90s-inspired transformations), and GRWM, but It’s 1999 (nostalgic looks plus lunches).

RESULTS

This awareness and relevance-focused organic campaign delivered strong upper-funnel results, as measured by a Dynata brand lift study. Creator content drove a +20pt lift in unaided brand awareness and a +5.6pt lift in purchase intent. Audience engagement was also above benchmark on Instagram and YouTube: Reels delivered a 6.9% average engagement rate and Shorts delivered a 5.2% average engagement rate, far above the Instacart benchmark of 3.5%-4.0%. TikTok delivered the strongest view rate at 129%. Plus our assets drove lower-funnel action in paid social, with Meta delivering the highest CTRs to drive purchase.

AWARDS

This campaign was shortlisted for the 2026 Digiday Video & TV Awards.

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