Instacart is turning to familiar pop culture characters including Shrek and Scooby-Doo to promote Clementine, its recently launched artificial intelligence-powered grocery shopping assistant, as part of a new integrated marketing campaign.
The campaign, titled "Turn any idea into an order", demonstrates how entertainment and everyday moments can become prompts for meal planning and grocery shopping. A series of four advertisements shows viewers taking inspiration from food-related scenes in films and television before using Clementine to generate meal ideas and add the required products to their Instacart carts.
One advertisement uses a scene from the 2001 animated film "Shrek", in which the character sits down for an unconventional meal. The viewer subsequently uses Clementine to find an idea for a one-pan dinner, with the assistant suggesting a butternut squash risotto.
Another spot draws on Scooby-Doo and Shaggy's familiar oversized sandwiches. The scene prompts a viewer to use Clementine to recreate a stacked sandwich through ingredients available on Instacart.
Two additional advertisements featuring references to "The Office" and "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" are scheduled to begin airing later this fall.
The campaign debuted during NBC's "Sunday Night Football" and is being distributed across linear television, connected and over-the-top television, YouTube, audio, social media and Instacart's own channels. Consumer brands including Hormel and Hillshire also appear in the creative.
The campaign was developed by Instacart's in-house agency, Local Produce, with production led by Prettybird. Brian McGinn, whose previous credits include food-focused productions such as "Chef's Table", directed the advertisements.
Clementine was launched earlier in September and is available to most Instacart customers in the US and Canada through the company's app and website. The AI assistant can turn conversations, recipes and shopping lists into personalised grocery carts.
Instacart says the system draws on insights from more than 1.6 billion lifetime orders. Its capabilities include suggesting meals, identifying promotions and lower-cost alternatives, reordering frequently purchased pantry items and converting handwritten or digital grocery lists into shopping carts.
The company is positioning personalisation as a central part of Clementine, with the assistant designed to learn more about a user's preferences and routines through continued use.
Alongside its consumer-facing assistant, Instacart offers Cart Assistant, a white-label AI shopping product for grocery retailers. The company has also expanded its AI strategy through collaborations and integrations involving technology companies including Google, OpenAI and Anthropic.
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