Pinterest hosts its first ad summit and opens new video ad space to brands

Author: Garrett Sloane.  Source: AdAge

Pinterest is pitching brands on a new video ad product that will give them a way to target consumers based on categories of interests, which advertisers described as an innovative way to snag brand budgets in upfront-type deals.

On Wednesday, Pinterest announced the new ad product it named Pinterest Premiere, which will appear in people’s feeds, targeted to their interests and other characteristics. Pinterest Premiere was just one of the points of focus at Pinterest Presents, which was the first advertising summit from the company. Pinterest Presents was held virtually and featured celebrity guests Chrissy Teigen and Dan Levy, as well as brands like American Express.

Pinterest showed off the new video ads, its consumer prediction powers, shopping tools, and other flairs of the platform in the presentation, which was similar to what a lot tech peers have been hosting lately in showcasing digital ad products to brands and ad agencies. Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter have all held similar events, so far, this year.

Liz Cole, executive director and U.S. head of social at VMLY&R, attended the event and said that the video product had potential for retail, food, apparel and home improvement brands, in particular. It’s an ad unit that is similar to ones that Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok offer, giving brands a prominent “takeover” position. Pinterest is in a unique position, Cole says, because it also has a line into people who are looking to hear most from brands at moments they are considering purchases.

“It marries two things that I think have previously been a little bit separated in the social landscape,” Cole says. “One being immersive video with broad reach and scale, and the second is this audience that’s extremely leaned forward, that’s planning for the future, that is explicitly trying to add brands and products to their consideration.”

Pinterest has been offering advertisers a way to reach 100% of an audience under a given demographic or interest for a day, or 30% of that audience for a week or month, Cole says.

It’s all part of a growing set of ad products that Pinterest has been developing. In 2020, Pinterest ad revenue grew 48% year over year to $1.7 billion. It’s becoming a growing part of budgets for brands branching out to new social channels.

The ad summit on Wednesday was part of that effort to keep the growth going. Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann and chief marketing officer Andréa Mallard both presented. Mallard hosted a talk with Levy, the co-creator of the hit show “Schitt’s Creek.”

Teigen and Levy both gave their takes on the ad industry and why Pinterest sometimes seems like a refuge from the more rough-and-tumble social media worlds of Twitter and Facebook, which owns Instagram. The speakers also discussed the need for more diverse representation in advertising and media, which was another key theme at the event.

“It really goes a long way to know that companies value, in my case, a gay man, but it should go way beyond me,” Levy said. “There are people that don’t really see themselves reflected in a lot of advertising and those are the people that I think should be approached and brought into the conversation.”