doordash+
kroger
branding, paid social, crm
As the lead designer for DoorDash’s largest grocery launch to date, I helped bring the Kroger x DoorDash partnership to life through a unified, full-funnel national campaign. This campaign aimed to drive awareness, trust, and trial—introducing Kroger’s quality and selection to DoorDash’s 18M+ Monthly Active Users and unlocking a 10–15% increase in national potential TAM (Total Addressable Market).
“Kroger’s quality and selection meets DoorDash’s speed and savings.”
How might we launch one of America’s most recognized grocery brands across nine sub-brands and multiple customer touchpoints, while maintaining a cohesive visual identity that felt both premium and familiar?
The challenge was scale and cohesion:
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9 Kroger family brands, each with unique colors and voice.
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500+ assets across paid and owned channels.
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4-week design turnaround.
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Consistent creative story across multiple seasonal phases (Launch, Thanksgiving, Christmas).
Design Vision
We wanted to make Kroger feel fresh, celebratory, and trustworthy, while blending seamlessly with DoorDash’s bold, energetic brand world.
The design system had three key principles:
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Familiarity Meets Freshness
Visuals honored Kroger’s established trust and color palette but incorporated DoorDash’s speed, motion, and warmth. -
Seasonal Storytelling
Design evolved through each phase:-
Launch: Announcement-driven, clean typography, grocery photography.
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Thanksgiving: Warm tones, family table visuals, abundance.
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Christmas: Cozy textures, celebratory moments, stress-free messaging.
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Scalable Design System
Modular templates and Figma components allowed for rapid iteration across 9 brands—each localized yet visually consistent.
Creative Execution
1. Paid Social Campaigns
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Designed static and animated assets across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat.
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Created variations for each Kroger sub-brand + a unified “Family of Brands” treatment.
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Focused on first-order offers (e.g., “30% off your first Kroger order”) and seasonal narratives.
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Developed responsive aspect ratios (1:1, 9:16, 16:9) for platform flexibility.
Outcome: 425M media impressions across paid social and digital channels.
2. CRM & Lifecycle Design
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Designed automated email and push templates that dynamically refreshed based on user behavior (e.g., first-time buyers, cart abandoners).
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Evolved static sends into evergreen automations, allowing the campaign to re-engage new eligible users in real time.
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Created seasonal creative swaps for Thanksgiving and Christmas use cases.
Outcome: reduced ops time for future campaigns and provided an evergreen blueprint for merchant launches.
3. In-App Design
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Designed homepage takeovers, immersive headers, and spotlight units featuring Kroger as the hero merchant.
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Focused on seasonal storytelling through motion, layering photography, iconography, and subtle animations.
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Created 20+ unique in-app surfaces—a +150% increase from past launches.
Outcome: record-high engagement across app discovery surfaces during launch window.
4. Out-of-Home & New Media Formats
Designed creative for new media formats including:
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Digital OOH: Animated placements in airports and urban centers.
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Netflix Pause Ads: Static launch moments designed for stop-and-look attention.
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Spotify Audio Companion Banners: Thematic visuals aligning with grocery occasions (“Hosting Thanksgiving? Get Kroger delivered.”)
Outcome: +220% more impressions than comparable Wegmans campaign.
Impact
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Delivered 500+ assets in under 4 weeks, maintaining consistency across 9 brands.
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Helped achieve record awareness and new trial metrics within the first month.
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Established a repeatable design system for future grocery launches (2026 evergreen plan).
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Strengthened DoorDash’s grocery credibility through cohesive, premium design storytelling.
Learnings
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Design at scale requires modular thinking: Building flexible templates early reduced creative fatigue and enabled brand customization.
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Seasonal storytelling outperforms static brand messaging: Adapting visuals to cultural moments improved click-through and engagement.
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Cross-functional alignment is design leverage: Partnering with media, CRM, and product teams from day one ensured every asset laddered up to a cohesive experience.
