Instacart Pokes Fun at Male Shopper Meme With Porowski, Berner

Instacart just made an entire branded episode around a meme aimed at men for years.

The delivery company has launched "The Male Shopper Project," a branded entertainment episode starring Antoni Porowski of "Queer Eye" and Hannah Berner of "Giggly Squad."

The story takes cues from a meme that says men can't be trusted to pick out groceries without getting something wrong.

The release marks Instacart's first entry into the micro-drama format.

It's a serialized branded storytelling style that has become one of the fastest-growing content categories on social platforms this year.

The project serves as Instacart's response to an actual online conversation, not just a bit it's riffing on for laughs.

"Instacart shoppers are really good at what they do — over 100 million five-star ratings last year speak for themselves," said Jasmine Taylor, Instacart VP of Brand Marketing.

"But the male shopper meme has taken on a life of its own, and we felt it was time to respond.

"We wanted a campaign that could tell that story in a way that was truly entertaining."

For the platform, a narrative episode felt like the right vehicle.

Turning the Punchline Into Product

The episode ties back to a larger platform Instacart has been building to show that ordering groceries online should feel as reliable as picking them out yourself.

This promise lives in "Grocery Quality Controls," a suite of in-app tools built into the ordering flow.

Shopper Notes lets customers leave specific instructions for their personal shopper.

Meanwhile, Replacement Preferences lets them set rules in advance for what happens when an item is out of stock.

Smart Backup fills gaps in an order without guessing, and Preference Picker lets customers dial in details like banana ripeness or exactly how thick they want their deli sliced.

Setting those tools next to a comedic story about a shopper who can't be bothered to check any of it drives the comedy home.

Instacart wants viewers to laugh as it lands on the idea that its own shoppers, working off customer instructions, do the opposite.

To top it all off, its two leads give the episode a built-in audience.

Porowski's reputation for taste and judgment from "Queer Eye" and Berner's comedic timing from "Giggly Squad" both map onto a story that's ultimately about grocery competence.

Humor as a Trust Signal

Audiences are more forgiving of a brand poking fun at itself when the joke gets resolved by something concrete.

Several lessons can be learned from Instacart's efforts.

Cast people fluent in the topic.

Porowski's culinary judgment and Berner's comedic timing both give the meme a credible narrator.

Let the punchline set up the product.

The meme creates the tension, and Grocery Quality Controls resolves it inside the same two minutes.

Treat the format as a controlled test.

As Instacart's first entry into micro-drama, the episode lets the brand measure whether narrative content is effective in building recall before it commits further to the format. 

Overall, Instacart resolves an internet joke with a checklist of specific ordering features, giving the meme a concrete answer inside the same story.

This quick turnaround from meme to feature is what separates campaigns made to convert skepticism into product awareness.

Our Take: Is a Two-Minute Story the Move?

This is Instacart's first swing at narrative drama, and the format asks for more patience than a normal ad gets.

A viewer has to sit through setup before they get to the tools that actually make the case.

We'd want to know if that payoff lands before the scroll does, or if the product can drive enough awareness. 

Micro-drama only works for a brand if the story and the pitch finish at the same time.

Whether this one does is the open question.