Lizzo & Instacart

Phil: Now let's get started, but first I wanna make an announcement on Supermarketguru.com. Starting today, courtesy of our partnership with Cision. You can get the latest feed on all the food news throughout the nation. It just streams. There's already thousands of stories on there. Two to give you an example of what's on there, today that I didn't know about. Planet Smoothie is now offering three new creamy avocado smoothies as part of their menu. I'm not sure there's Avo Loco, Pińa Paradise, and nutty avocado. Not sure that that's something I'm gonna try. Also Dunkin donuts, our friends at Dunkin Donuts have a new harpoon Dunkin, pumpkin spiced latte ale. That's coming out and I forgot to mute my phone, you know, that we're live here. So Sally, let's get started. 

Phil: Instacart has tapped Lizzo for their new brand campaign. It's really interesting. It's getting some very mixed reviews both in the trade press and I think from Lizzo herself . The whole idea here is they wanna attract generation Z, which is great. The campaign is called "The world is your cart". They launched it during the VMAs. They sponsored an ad during the VMAs. They sponsored Lizzo, obviously on it. And the film starts off by showing her in a bathtub, listening to a remix. It progresses with her surroundings, turning into a fantastical scene, covered with cherry blossom trees as she adds items to her digital cart. [Sally] I know that you're a fan of Lizzo. Before we get into the food aspect, tell us a little bit about what you know about Lizzo.

Sally: Well, starting off with the video. I think the video is really cute and very well done. You know, she orders cherries, it rains cherries down on her. She orders flowers and then flowers bloom all around her and it's very creative and very compelling. I do feel like this is a great way to go after that gen Z audience, if that's what they're trying to do. And she is also very appealing to the gen Z audience because she has been, even though she says she doesn't want to be a role model for body positivity, she has been that for a lot of young people, sort of sending out the message that we can be healthy and not be super skinny. So I really like this campaign and I like that they've got Lizzo involved now. I do have some questions about what's in Lizzo's cart. 

Phil: Well, let's talk about generation Z. Their top spending priority is food, taking 23% of their wallet. That comes from Piper-Sandler And food is the greatest share of spending a month. The upper income males, teen age, 13 to 19, 54% of teens prefer healthy snacks. That's what we're gonna talk about when we get to Lizzo's cart, 49% consume, or we're willing to try plant-based meat, and then her cart, here's a little tease, there is the Impossible Burger. They've shown generation Z has a preference for healthy eating, more organic, more natural foods that are free of additives. They pay more attention to the ingredient list. However, here's the downside to them, only 3% list fruits, vegetables, or nuts as a favorite snack item, which is sort of surprising to me for this generation. The top six snack brands for teens: Lays, Doritos, Cheetos, all from Frito Lay, Pepsi, Campbell Soups, goldfish. I didn't even know goldfish was still a thing. Kellogg's cheese itsand Mondelez's Oreos. 

Phil: And they, the Piper Sandler survey that I'm referencing, found that the average teen spends about 12 hours a week on social media. So to your point, this is really smart of Instacart to try to get involved with this because to make Instacart hip for millennials or, you know, generation Z, could be a challenge. There's also in today's supermarket news and interview with Celia Van Wickel,the senior director of digital commerce at Cantar who talks about this campaign. She points out that Instacart has 22 and a half thousand followers on TikTok. Lizzo has 25.2 million followers on TikTok. So clearly, you know, there's some opportunity here. She also talks about the fact that this expands the categories on Amazon for this generation Lizzo orders, Takis. And as you pointed out, flowers and a phone charger. So it's really talking about all that, but also what she points out, which is really important to me is that on Lizzo's TikTok and on her Instagram, there's no reference to Instacart or to this campaign. So for me that says that, you know, Lizzo has a toe in, you know, maybe it's a good money thing, maybe it's, but she's really not into it. If in fact she's not promoting it. If you think about when Oprah, you know, bought into Weight Watchers, everything that Oprah was doing was all about weight Watchers. It was really a 50/50 proposition, versus Lizzo, just like a toe in the water. 

Phil: Let's talk about her shopping cart. I guess my first question is how much did these brands have to pay to be on this page? That's the cynicism in me because here's, what's there Ben and Jerry's ice cream, the takis, Smuckers, Uncrustables, peanut butter, those horrible sandwiches. Cherries as per her order. Flowers, Oreo chocolate sandwich cookies, Skittles, the impossible foods, lemons, limes, bananas, purified, water. Perrier. Coca-Cola. What do you think about her shopping cart? 

Sally: Well, I'm disappointed that it doesn't have more fresh fruits and vegetables in it. In fact, I'm not sure there is one vegetable on it and that would be good to see. It does feel like junk food. Lizzo works out all the time. She does all this hard dancing and singing on stage and she posts that all on her TikTok account, if you've looked at it. And she seems like a very strong, healthy woman. She eats a vegan diet. That's why we see the impossible beef on there. But I don't know if this is really sending a good message to gen Z about choices of healthy food that they have. 

Phil: I agree. I mean, they could do so much more. I agree with using Lizzo to get to this audience. I agree that she has this very strict workout regime. I couldn't handle it. She's vegan. Body positivity, you know, I'm strong. You know, when I watched her on Saturday night live, I don't know, a year ago or whatever else I said, oh my gosh, this girl can move there. There's no question about it. She's gotta be working out to do this. So you take all that and then you have her page on Instacart, and for me, it's just a disconnect just as, as you said. So kudos for reaching out, and Instacart, you get an F for both execution. On Lizzo's side of things, and I don't know if that means more money or what it means, but certainly on her page, that you want people to go to and buy things, up the ante. Do things that are a little bit better. Okay. Enough on Lizzo. But hopefully Instacart is listening and hopefully they're gonna make some changes. And, hey Lizzo, we invite you to come here on the Lempert Report LIVE, tell us what we're getting wrong here. You know, anytime, anytime you want.