The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2026
Instacart made choosing the right banana a Super Bowl spectacle to sell a picker feature.
Instacart dramatised a boring feature - choosing produce ripeness - as a chaotic variety show, driving mass reach and new users to its app.
Instacart
the move
Instacart added a Preference Picker so users could choose how ripe their produce is, solving a common pain point in grocery delivery: 'I can't pick my own bananas'.
A feature walkthrough would get no attention, so McCann and BBDO dramatised the choice as a high-stakes, chaotic variety-show performance, treating a banana's ripeness as a cliffhanger.
The absurdity is relatable, so people watched and remembered the feature; the brand benefit - you control your produce - landed as the punchline rather than as a spec.
It delivered exceptional reach: 91M+ owned impressions and 579M+ total social reach, up 643% year over year, reaching 87% non-followers.
why it works
- A utility is invisible until you make it the drama.
- Relatable absurdity (banana ripeness) beats a spec sheet for attention.
- It made a product improvement culturally shareable, so the reach compounds.
what transfers
Features do not sell themselves; if a utility is invisible, blow it up into a spectacle people want to watch, and the product benefit comes along for the ride.
what came after
The campaign became one of the most-awarded works of the 2026 One Show (eight awards and the festival's highest points that year), and its Super Bowl appearance drove an immediate lift - new-user traffic up 72% after the spot and strong year-over-year brand performance.
references
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