McCann
New York
INSTACART
FOR PAPA
Truth
WHEN SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES, PEOPLE ARE FIERCELY PARTICULAR ABOUT SMALL THINGS, LIKE BANANA RIPENESS. LOSING CONTROL OVER THAT IS WHAT MAKES ONLINE GROCERY SHOPPING FEEL RISKY.
Truth Well Told
INSTACART TURNED BANANA RIPENESS INTO AN OPERATIC RIVALRY AT THE SUPER BOWL, SHOWING CONSUMERS THAT WITH ITS NEW “PREFERENCE PICKER” FEATURE, THEY’RE STILL THE ONES IN CONTROL.
Silver Lion, Craft
Bronze Lion, Entertainment
Humor, Visual Style, Production Design, Performance
Bronze Cube, Merit Honors
Impact
91M+ owned impressions, 579M+ total reach (87% non-followers), 22B earned impressions, and a spike in new users.
Description
Online grocery's real barrier isn't convenience, but control, especially over fresh produce. Instacart's data showed customers had left 32M+ notes specifying banana ripeness alone.
For the Super Bowl, McCann and Instacart dramatized this obsession at operatic scale -- transforming banana ripeness into the subject of an epic musical showdown. What starts as a polished Euro-pop duet featuring Ben Stiller and Benson Boone escalates into an absurd, high-stakes rivalry, performed on a 60-foot stage with 45,000+ illuminated elements and shot on original 1980s broadcast cameras for an authentic analog look. Rather than explain the platform’s new “Preference Picker” feature, the campaign embedded it directly into the entertainment — sung, performed, and repeated until product and story became inseparable. The work reframed online grocery from a loss of control to a celebration of it.
LAST PRISONER PROJECT
THE PEN TO RIGHT HISTORY
Truth
AMERICA PROFITS FROM CANNABIS WHILE MILLIONS STILL PAY ITS PRICE.
Truth Well Told
WITH A SIMPLE PEN, WE MADE THE SOLUTION SO OBVIOUS THAT POLITICIANS COULDN’T HIDE THEIR INACTION. BY PUTTING IT IN THE HANDS OF AFFECTED FAMILIES INSTEAD OF PRESSURING POLITICIANS PUBLICLY, THE CAMPAIGN LET LEADERS SIGN PARDONS AS AN ACT OF HEROISM — NOT A CONCESSION TO PRESSURE.
Silver Lion "Glass - the Lion for Change"
Campaign of the Year
2 Wood Pencils
2 Gold, 1 Silver
Impact
175,000 pardoned convictions — the largest state pardon in U.S. history — plus 1 billion earned impressions, and ripple effects including Biden's pardon of eight clients and Maryland's 2025 Expungement Reform Act.
Description
Politicians avoid pardons — "soft on crime" is a career risk, and the public has little sympathy for anyone labeled a criminal. McCann and Last Prisoner Project gave lawmakers a way to act: a symbolic pen, called "The Pen to Right History," placed in the hands of families affected by cannabis convictions to write personal pleas for justice. We made the solution so obvious that politicians couldn’t hide their inaction - over 20,000 letters were sent directly to governors and the President, reframing a pardon not as risk, but as heroism.