Unlocking the Power of Pinterest: Driving Explosive User Growth and Unparalleled Brand Retention

Unlocking the Power of Pinterest: Driving Explosive User Growth and Unparalleled Brand Retention

Pinterest ramps up brand strategy to boost user engagement and loyalty, leveraging experiential features, social connections, and strategic partnerships for a vibrant user experience

Unlocking the Power of Pinterest: Driving Explosive User Growth and Unparalleled Brand Retention

Pinterest is determined to enhance the understanding of its platform's capabilities in order to foster reevaluation and encourage new users to interact with the brand. To accomplish this, the company has implemented its 'It's Possible' campaign, serving not only as a promotion for the brand but also as an explanatory tool for the platform. The campaign's latest version, initially launched in July, combines experiential activities, social engagement, and partnerships to effectively disseminate information to both new and inactive users.

The interest-driven platform, where users known as 'Pinners' can collect and explore their hobbies and projects, experienced a surge in usage during the pandemic. However, this increase in users prompted Pinterest to reevaluate how users discover and utilize the platform, leading to a shift in its marketing strategy.

Pinterest's director of marketing, Louise Richardson, reveals that the platform had not engaged in brand marketing until around four years ago. She states, "We will now focus more on developing our brand at the higher end, rather than in the middle layer of comprehension. It was only three or four years ago, with the arrival of [global chief marketing and communications officer] Andréa Mallard in the US, that we began brand marketing. As we gained new users, we started paying more attention to comprehension."

The It's Possible campaign aims to showcase various features of Pinterest that new or occasional users may not be aware of.

Richardson recognizes that although Pinterest has a strong presence in its current markets, not all users are aware of its full capabilities. This lack of understanding is affecting Pinterest's ability to retain users on a daily basis, which is crucial for advertising-driven platforms.

Richardson acknowledges that the current understanding of Pinterest's capabilities among its user base needs improvement. The company intends to increase monthly active users through a campaign that targets both existing and new users. Consequently, Pinterest is directing its efforts towards the UK and the US, where it has identified an opportunity to re-engage users. In the UK alone, Pinterest boasts 17 million monthly users who collectively save an impressive 10 million ideas on a daily basis.

With its aim to make everything on the platform shoppable, the company recognizes a significant opportunity, assuming users continue to engage. Pinterest's own statistics reveal that 96% of top searches are unbranded, yet shoppers on Pinterest are observed to spend twice as much as shoppers on other platforms. To achieve this, Pinterest intends to emphasize technology and tools that align with and enhance a user's current interests. This can involve features such as shared boards that facilitate collaboration among multiple Pinners or in-app tools like the hair texture search function.

Pinterest has acknowledged the potential challenges of machine learning-enabled tools on its platform, but it recognizes the value of tools that allow users to search based on skin tone range. Additionally, it emphasizes the positive impact of tools like the body shape tool, which was recently introduced.

The campaign aims to educate users about Pinterest's role in connecting digital and physical experiences. As part of this, Pinterest has created an experiential aspect called 'Possibility Place' in Covent Garden. This space enables visitors to engage with Pinterest creators in real life, offering opportunities such as getting tattoos and lessons in upcycling, among other interests found on the platform. The public can visit the space on Friday, September 29, and Saturday, September 30.

The brand campaign will expand beyond the experiential, marking a shift in Pinterest's approach to its own marketing. According to Richardson, Pinterest has been a successful performance-driven business for a long time, but now they are emphasizing the effectiveness of brand advertising. She asserts that marketing at Pinterest is not a cost center, but a source of revenue, and they plan to invest in brand advertising, experiential marketing, and additional channels in the coming year. Richardson also mentions that Pinterest intends to replicate some of the partnerships they have established in the US, such as their collaboration with Amazon Ads in April, which aims to streamline their ecommerce offering.