Instacart Expands Advertising Initiative With New $1 Million to Support Women-Owned Brands

SAN FRANCISCO, March 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, today announced an expansion to the Instacart Ads Initiative, committing up to $1 million to amplify women-owned consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands within the Instacart Marketplace. The Instacart Ads Initiative is designed to support historically underrepresented, emerging brands directly within the Instacart Marketplace by leveraging the company's advertising products. Instacart Ads currently offers self-service and managed ad services for more than 5,000 CPG brands of all sizes, helping them connect with customers in the digital aisles while online grocery shopping.

"In time to celebrate and honor Women's History Month, we're proud to launch the second wave of our Instacart Ads Initiative focused on driving growth for women-owned brands in the digital aisles. Our launch partners - Sweet Loren's, Three Wishes Cereal, and Twrl Milk Tea - are led by accomplished women, who are growing their businesses with our ads products," said Ali Miller, Head of Ads Product at Instacart. "With our Ads Initiative, we are supporting emerging brands by providing onboarding support, sharing campaign optimization best practices, and offering the opportunity to connect with and inspire new and existing customers on Instacart. Our goal is to continue to identify and amplify more women entrepreneurs and brands with Instacart Ads to help them drive discovery and business growth."

With this expansion, the Instacart Ads Initiative now offers emerging, women-owned CPG brands the opportunity to reach a broader audience in the digital aisles with prominent advertising placement among millions of items available from the more than 700 national, regional and local retailers featured on the Instacart Marketplace. Beginning in April, eligible brands will receive free Instacart Ads credits to use with the company's flagship sponsored product offering throughout 2022.

"At Three Wishes, we're huge fans of Instacart – the way their ad platform helps drive movement and supports our retail business has proved to be invaluable. When they asked us to be part of this program, we were honored and couldn't be more thrilled. We're touched by Instacart's commitment to lifting up promising brands by supporting women-owned businesses and can't wait to be a part of this new initiative." – Margaret Wishingrad, Founder, Three Wishes Cereal

"I'm so glad to see Instacart taking an actionable step to invest in the work women are doing in the food and beverage industry, from designing innovative products to creating delicious and healthy alternatives for favorite family recipes. At Twrl Milk Tea, we're focused on doing just that, using quality, ethically-sourced ingredients to create a healthy and delicious version of a quintessential beverage drawn from our Asian heritage. We're looking forward to partnering with Instacart to amplify this work." – Pauline Ang, Founder and CEO, Twrl Milk Tea

"As a Taiwanese American, I grew up learning to make traditional milk tea with my aunt and cousins. Building Twrl Milk Tea, a modern plant-based better-for-you option, has brought me closer to my family and culture. We're excited to share the flavors of our culture in a format that resonates with our values, without compromising health. In addition to our product - designed by two busy moms to work for families on the go - one of our priorities at Twrl Milk Tea is a commitment to supporting our community, especially AAPI and women-centered groups. We're so excited to join Instacart in this initiative to lift up women-owned brands across the industry." – Olivia Chen, Co-founder and CMO, Twrl Milk Tea

"As a female entrepreneur, I have focused my mission on being a force for good in the food industry – we have disrupted the refrigerated dough category dominated by large companies. We have proven to consumers that refrigerated dough crafted with only clean ingredients, that's non-GMO, gluten free & plant-based, can be even more delicious than the highly processed conventional options. I am proud to inspire people, especially young women, to follow their dreams and make the world a better place. Sweet Loren's is helping people realize that food made from simple, real ingredients is safer for more people to enjoy together. Clean ingredients do make a difference: they make you feel good physically and mentally, and are more sustainable for the environment. Instacart has played an important role in our business as this is the future of shopping. Our cookie dough is all about convenience, and Instacart helps make shopping such a seamless experience. My team and I are so appreciative of the collaboration and support they have shown to small businesses, especially women-owned brands to help us continue to grow and meet our customers' needs in this ever-changing world." – Loren Brill Castle, Founder and CEO, Sweet Loren's

The Instacart Ads Initiative launched last year with a commitment of up to $1 million to support digital advertising for Black-owned CPG brands on Instacart. Since then, Black-owned CPG brands from across the country have leveraged the Initiative to drive their business growth through sales and category share on Instacart, and the program is continuing into 2022.

Instacart Ads offers a full suite of advertising products. The company's sponsored product offering, coupled with the new brand pages and suite of display products, equips brands on the Instacart Marketplace with comprehensive full-funnel marketing capabilities with unique consumer insights, scale, and reach. Instacart also partners with industry-leading API partners that have built campaign management and optimization applications leveraging the Instacart Ads API.

The Instacart Ads Initiative builds on the company's ongoing commitment to prioritize Diversity, Equity, and Belonging. At Instacart, Diversity, Equity and Belonging encompasses everything from increasing representation, career development and opportunities, to social impact initiatives uplifting our communities, and ensuring we're designing products that are accessible to everyone.

To apply to participate in the Instacart Ads Initiative, please visit: https://ads.instacart.com/

About Instacart
Instacart is the leading online grocery platform in North America. Instacart shoppers offer same-day delivery and pickup services to bring fresh groceries and everyday essentials to busy people and families across the U.S. and Canada. Instacart has partnered with more than 700 beloved national, regional and local retailers, including unique brand names, to deliver from more than 65,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities in North America. Instacart's platform is available to over 85% of U.S. households and 90% of Canadian households. The company's cutting-edge enterprise technology also powers the ecommerce platforms of some of the world's biggest retail players, supporting their white-label websites, applications and delivery solutions. Instacart offers an Instacart Express membership that includes reduced service fees and unlimited free delivery on orders over $35. For more information, visit www.instacart.com. For anyone interested in becoming an Instacart shopper, visit https://shoppers.instacart.com/.

SOURCE Instacart