Doritos Halloween Jack-o-Lantern Recipe a Huge Hit on Instacart

With Instacart Ads, we can help consumers find new products and brands they’ll love while shopping online from their favorite retailers. By connecting CPG brands with consumers at the point of purchase, we can help them reach, engage with, and acquire new customers. 

Our recent launch of recipes is a perfect example of product innovation that supports brands and consumers alike. This visual ad format inspires consumers while they’re shopping, giving brands a way to effectively drive product discovery beyond traditional aisles.

Capturing seasonal moment with recipe ads

During Halloween season, PepsiCo wanted to create seasonal relevancy and drive consideration for their core products – like Doritos. They ran recipe ads leveraging their in-house-developed recipe content for Doritos Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns, which used Doritos, ground beef, and onions as a stuffing for bell peppers.

Since the recipe included ingredients like ground beef and bell peppers, PepsiCo was able to reach consumers searching for products outside of the snack aisle, and inspire them with engaging content. By showcasing their products through a new lens — as an ingredient in an enticing completed dish — they were able to leverage timely seasonal excitement. 

Thanks to the seamless add-to-cart experience, consumers could easily act on their inspiration and try making the dish themselves, converting reach into sales for PepsiCo.

PepsiCo reaching out of their aisle with an irresistible recipe

PepsiCo’s campaign saw above-benchmark clickthrough rates, and 85% reach on high volume keyword searches outside of their usual aisle, like “ground beef” and “bell peppers”. 

This not only highlighted the appeal of the recipe ad but also demonstrated its power in reaching a broader out-of-aisle audience. 

“Recipes serve as an incremental consideration driver to performance media as they inspire shoppers and capture latent demand informed by consumer insights,” said Alex Hoffman, Marketing Manager, PepsiCo. “They help grow the category by driving consideration out-of-aisle, and create a deeper connection with our existing consumers through tactile culinary experiences.”

Looking ahead— future plans for recipes

The positive results PepsiCo earned on their strategic use of recipes has demonstrated the value of the ad format in the brand’s marketing strategy going forward. 

“Recipes will continue to be a lever that PepsiCo uses to extend the relevancy of our items into meals, cultural trends, and seasonal moments,” said Hoffman. “We see the opportunity to expand off-platform through social and video to engage with consumers who may be further up the purchase funnel but can be converted with a relevant usage occasion and fulfilled with the convenience of Instacart.”

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Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, partnering with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to deliver from more than 85,000 stores across more than 14,000 cities in North America. To read more Instacart posts, you can browse the company blog or search by keyword using the search bar at the top of the page.