OVERVIEW

Your memory fails. Speedy prevails. Problem solved.

OVERVIEW

CONTEXT

Instacart Fast Delivery

ROLE

Experience Design
Digital Experience Strategy, Design & Development

OBJECTIVE

TIMELINE

Product differentiation campaign

4-week sprint
‍September 2024

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

A Cramped Express Lane

Instacart's "Fast Delivery" launched in 2021 amid the pandemic delivery boom, targeting smaller orders customers might otherwise grab themselves.
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The market quickly saturated. Amazon Fresh, Walmart Plus, DoorDash, UberEats—all promised identical speed. This sameness diminished Instacart's edge, while operational challenges further undermined its "fast" promise.

Instacart

"Fast as 30 minutes—groceries made easy."

DoorDash

"Fresh groceries in 30 minutes."

Walmart

"Order online and get it all, fast."

Amazon Fresh

"The food shop just got speedier."

USER INSIGHT

The Hellscape of the
Grocery Aisle

Shopper anecdotes and studies reveal grocery shopping creates surprising yet significant cognitive load. Bustling, overstimulating environments, decision fatigue, and social pressures combine to create a uniquely taxing experience where even meticulous list-makers inevitably fail.

Digital grocery interfaces add new frictions—complex navigation, substitution anxiety, and delays—merely shifting rather than solving the emotional burden.

OPPORTUNITY SPACE

More Than Speed

Fast Delivery's true value isn't being faster—it's being there when things go wrong.

Shoppers don't want marginally better speed; they want psychological rescue from the universal, inevitable anxiety of forgetting.
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This insight guided our path to differentiation: emotional resonance rather than functional promises. By positioning Fast Delivery as emotional insurance rather than mere convenience, we could tap into primal needs for security and support.

SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE [PLATFORM]

Not a cute mascot but anxiety personified, Speedy Little Buddy panics so you don't have to.

SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE [1/3]

In-App Experience

View the Figma prototype

Brand Mascot Integration

The home screen introduces Speedy with existential urgency: This immediately signals to users that Speedy isn’t a typical corporate mascot—he's a chaotic force of nature dedicated to fixing your mistakes.
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Tracking with Personality

Delivery updates feature Speedy in various states of determined mania, turning wait time into an engaging parasocial relationship with a character who’s losing it on your behalf.
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Speedy’s Little Saves

We introduce categorized collections that acknowledge the reality of shopping: things Speedy knows you'll inevitably forget, things he knows you're running low on, and favorites you may not have grabbed in a while (with the passive-aggressive "You good bro?").
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SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE [2/3]

Brand Acts

Speedy Little Bailouts

At events across the country, Instacart stages "bailouts" where a Speedy Little Buddy mascot saves the day with critical elements about to run out—from weddings with forgotten cake toppers to the Superbowl, these stunts garner press while proving product value.

Speedy Little Stop ‘n’ Go

The only thing faster than delivery is a second store on your way home. We positioned Speedy Little Stop 'n' Go at bus stops and transit hubs, meeting shoppers where they are to solve their lapses when or even before they occur.

Speedy Little Cookbook

A cookbook designed specifically for the forgetful with QR codes that instantly add ingredients to carts, plus recipes specifically designed to be salvageable when common ingredients are forgotten.

SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE [3/3]

Out-Of-Home

Big Confidence, Bigger Solutions

Rather than showcasing happy families with fresh produce, our billboards display confrontationally honest scenarios of social disasters caused by forgetfulness, implicitly planting “seeds of doubt”.

This approach displays unabashed confidence that creates both trust and immediate differentiation from competitors' reassuring platitudes.

REFLECTION

Channel Psychology, Don't Mask It

Rather than minimizing negative emotions, brands can differentiate by acknowledging, channeling, and transforming them into positive experiences, even emotional service.

Our Absurdism Defuses Shame

By rejecting polished corporate mascots for an over-the-top approach, we transformed missteps into slapstick in a category typically focused on aspirational perfection.

Our Organized Chaos

Maintaining the effectiveness of Speedy's frantic energy across all platforms required tight collaboration between digital, copy, art direction, and strategy to ensure the character remained interesting but likeable still.

ART DIRECTION

Stephen Dvorak

COPYWRITING

Henry Coffee

CREATIVE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Sarah Jones

EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Yanna Nguyen

STRATEGY

Joy Zhou

A Cramped Express Lane

The Hellscape of theGrocery Aisle

More Than Speed

Brand Acts

The Hellscape of the
Grocery Aisle