Instacart's CMO explains the anxiety-inducing experience of creating the brand's first-ever Super Bowl ad

• Instacart is set to air its first Super Bowl ad on Sunday, featuring nostalgic brand mascots.
• In an interview, Instacart CMO Laura Jones shared the risks involved in creating the campaign.
• Instacart is betting its investment will boost the brand, sales, and ad revenue.

Instacart CMO Laura Jones admits she's been a little stressed recently.

Jones and her team are preparing to air Instacart's first-ever Super Bowl ad this weekend, and the stakes are high.

Any brand looking to stand out during TV advertising's tentpole event has a lot on the line. Some brands paid broadcaster Fox upward of $8 million to secure 30 seconds of airtime this year. That doesn't even include the costs of producing the ad and the extra media buys on social media and elsewhere.

"There have been so many mornings over the past six months where I've just been scared we're taking this huge risk," Jones told BI. "There are points in the creative process when you are kind of operating on faith, and it's scary."

Instacart's ad, which will air during the second quarter of the game, draws on nostalgia, bringing back memorable brand mascots from previous Super Bowls. Characters like the Heinz Wiener Dogs, Green Giant, the Old Spice Guy, and Kool-Aid Man join forces to deliver a family's grocery order.

Jones said the ad aims to convey the idea that Instacart takes care of the groceries so that its users can take care of their lives.

When Jones took the early Super Bowl ad idea to Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, she said she was asked by Simo, "How do we know this is going to work?"

Jones did have a data point to back up the strategy: The company's "Bunny Ears" back-to-school campaign during the Paris Olympics had driven "material" sales growth. Still, the Super Bowl would be a much bigger investment.

The four members of the Instacart marketing team behind the Super Bowl push had a make-or-break meeting about whether to go ahead.

"We were like, OK, we're choosing to do this," Jones said. "We're about to take on a ton of work. We're about to take on a huge risk. If we don't do this well, it could cost me or all of us our careers, but do we want to take this risk?"

"We did because we felt like we put in the hard work, we were ready, and we felt confident in our ability to execute," Jones added.

System1, a company that rates TV ads on their potential to drive long-term growth for brands, rated Instacart's ad at 4.1 stars out of a possible 5.9 stars. That's a good score that placed it 9th out of the Super Bowl LIX ads System1 has analyzed so far. The top-scoring ad, with a perfect score of 5.9 stars, was Lay's "The Little Farmer," which tells a story about a girl growing her own potatoes. System1 asks a panel of consumers to indicate how they feel about the ad they're viewing from a list of emotions ranging from contempt and disgust to happiness and surprise.

Vanessa Chin, System1's SVP of marketing, said the Instacart ad intensifies its emotional connection with viewers by using familiar characters and music.

"Using 'Take It to da House' as the soundtrack was particularly effective, tying into Instacart's delivery business while enhancing the emotional impact with its upbeat tune, often played by marching bands," Chin said.

Instacart faced added complexity by partnering with multiple brands who were also its advertisers

The concept of Instacart's "We're Here" Super Bowl ad itself had added challenges. Instacart had to carefully manage the intellectual property and brand guidelines of all the different partners involved — who also happen to be advertisers on its platform. The company worked with the ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day LA to produce the ad.

Instacart has also been mindful of those relationships as it extended the campaign beyond the TV spot. In the lead-up to the game, it brought some of the mascots to shows, including "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and "The Today Show." It partnered with Kraft Heinz to have the Wienermobile, driven by Cheeto's mascot Chester Cheetah, make deliveries in New Orleans, Kansas City, and Philadelphia.

"You get this huge benefit of added reach through social, through news coverage," Jones said.

Jones said that Instacart will test whether it achieves demonstrable lifts in areas such as unaided awareness and consideration, and whether the campaign drives a measurable lift in gross transaction volume. Instacart will also look at whether the Super Bowl push helps generate revenue for its own advertising business. It's working with its partners to push promotions in the app, such as letting users add a free bag of Cheetos to their orders during game week.

Like many other Super Bowl LIX advertisers, Instacart decided to keep its campaign lighthearted this year.

Jones said the marketing team had considered making a heartstring-puller but felt it would be difficult to stand out. She recalled The Farmer's Dog's "Forever" commercial from Super Bowl 2023, which was widely lauded, while other tear-jerkers that year weren't as memorable.

Jones said humor serves as a great connector, which she hopes will drive affinity for the brand as millions of people tune in on Sunday to watch the Chiefs take on the Eagles.

"Humor is something that really plays better in a group," Jones said. "It's more fun to laugh when you're in a group of people than when you're alone in your bed streaming at 11 o'clock at night."