The Summer of 1999: How Instacart & Linqia Unlocked Full-Funnel Results via Nostalgic Creator-Led Storytelling

This is a collaborative case study between Influencer Marketing Hub and Linqia, breaking down how Instacart leveraged creator-led storytelling to drive full-funnel results.

Instacart is delivering the future of grocery. A decade ago, Instacart introduced a new model for online grocery shopping and convenient home delivery. Today, they offer retail enablement solutions for more than 2,200 retail banners across nearly 100,000 locations. The company’s intuitive, simple solutions for retailers, customers, brands and shoppers are transforming how the world shops, eats and lives.

Linqia is the leading independent influencer marketing agency in the US. Leveraging our AI-powered proprietary technology platform, Resonate, we work with some of the world’s leading brands to develop and execute creatively compelling creator-led strategies that deliver full-funnel results.

Instacart wanted to be positioned as a culturally-relevant and emotionally-resonant brand that empowers consumers to live in the moment by handling their summer shopping needs. The company knew that, in 2025, consumers were struggling with the rising cost of groceries and that many were nostalgic for the prices and foods of decades gone by. So, the brand turned to influencer marketing agency, Linqia, to launch a creator-led campaign rooted in nostalgia.

Strategy

Instacart offered consumers a summer promotion combining the nostalgia-fueled joy of 1999 prices with the convenience of modern-day delivery. 

Linqia devised a three-pronged creator-led strategy to drive awareness of the deal and relevance for the brand, anchored on playful, nostalgia-driven storytelling. 

Our plan consisted of:

1. Organic Creator Posting: Linqia identified, contracted, and briefed Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube creators with significant followings, tapping them for their reach and influence, as well as their storytelling abilities.
2. Asset Optimization: Linqia’s Post-Production team edited organic creator content for use in lower-funnel paid social campaigns across Meta, TikTok, and Snap, optimizing assets to adhere to best practices for paid social creative.
3. Creator Generated Content (CGC): Linqia also contracted lower-following creators and briefed them to create “made for paid” assets for use across paid social at a fraction of the cost of traditional production.

Overall, we created 76 assets spotlighting Instacart’s throwback deals. 

For the organic creator posts, we inspired influencers by giving them several creative ways in, allowing them to choose the approach that would resonate best with their engaged audiences and unique content styles. 

Creative approaches included:

• Delivery Roulette: surprise snack hauls;
• 1 Day vs. 1 Month: ’90s-inspired transformations;
• Get Ready With Me, But It’s 1999: nostalgic looks plus lunches.

Results

The awareness and relevance-focused organic campaign delivered strong upper-funnel results, as measured by an independent Dynata brand lift study. Creator content drove a +20pt lift in unaided brand awareness and a +5.6pt lift in purchase intent. 

Audience engagement was also above benchmark on Instagram and YouTube. Creators’ Instagram Reels delivered a 6.9% average engagement rate, while creators’ YouTube Shorts delivered a 5.2% average engagement rate. Meanwhile, TikTok delivered the strongest view rate at 129%. 

Top-performing organic content included Reels from creators @aww.sam and @aliciasicz that delivered engagement rates over 7X and over 3X the Instacart benchmark.

What’s more, our assets drove lower-funnel action in paid social, with Meta delivering the highest CTRs to drive purchases.

The campaign was shortlisted for the 2026 Digiday Video & TV Awards in the Best Social Video Campaign category, recognizing the quality of our video content and its efficacy in driving full-funnel results.

Consumer Comments

Comments on creators’ organic posts also showed the campaign struck a chord with consumers. 

• • We built brand love for Instacart:

• Party like it's 1999 with your Instacart snacks! Love it!

• dude this is my dream brand deal I love Instacart so much

• • We sparked cravings for ’90s snacks:

• Pass the gushers, dunkaroos and pizzarias.

• Gushers for the win!!!

• Bagel bites FTW!

• Lunchablesssssss!!

• very 90s!! also imma need those fruity pebbles pls

• I’m so hungry rn

• Bro i can taste the nostalgia 😂😂😂

• • And we succeeded in tapping into the nostalgic feels, even for those born in this millennium:

• Omg I love the 90s and 80s but I was born in 2013 but I love the sour fruit rollups

• Totally agree! (Was alive for 9 months in the 90s)
• I want to do this for my 15th birthday

Explore more influencer marketing case studies from Linqia here

About the Author

Finola Austin

Writer