When comprehension gets creative
A behind-the-scenes look at our newest Pinterest campaign
Confession: Anytime product comprehension is the goal of a creative assignment, I tense up. It’s obviously the most noble of goals, but can so easily go so wrong. Think endless closeups of phone scrolls, finger taps and sign-up flows. Great for a how-to tutorial, less great for a 30-second campaign video that anyone actually wants to watch.
So I started to sweat when the brief dropped for our latest campaign: Boost comprehension for businesses, and show how people use Pinterest to make decisions about which products to buy. What was the best and most memorable way to capture that in 30 fleeting seconds of video?
More why, less what
Another challenge was having an audience of primarily businesses. How would that affect tone? Would it need to be…business-y? That might feel like a creative compromise, and more importantly, not at all like Pinterest.
As our creative team fell into the concepting wormhole, we tried to think about comprehension in a new and more “put Pinners first” kind of way (putting Pinners first being one of Pinterest’s top company mottos). For us, that meant more story than screenshots, and more why than what.
And we landed on something that felt more, well, dreamy.
Living the dream
Because Pinterest is visual, we wanted to show the imaginative leap people take when they see an eye-catching idea on Pinterest, picture it for themselves, then turn that dream into next steps. One of our Pinners, Sydney Schafer, had a lovely way of describing that Pinterest creative spark moment: “I think it’s like chocolate for our brain, to see something that looks right.”
We decided to play with that super-charged you’ll know it when you see it moment when people discover an idea that inspires them. It was also a creative bet that playing with that moment would be more memorable, and ultimately more effective at helping businesses really get Pinterest, vs. yet another app walkthrough.
You’ll notice that in both cases, even though the two characters land on a shared idea, they don’t picture it playing out the same way. That was our way of making sure the story ended on a wink, instead of happy ending eye rolls. Leaning into the contrast of what they’re each picturing also helped make it feel more true to life. Because ultimately, how dreams play out is entirely dependent on the dreamer.
It’s still early days, but so far the two videos are doing even better than we’d hoped, and giving Pinterest for business a nice, big brand boost. So hey, it’s looking like there is something comprehension-worthy about this idea of dreaming on Pinterest, and I hope it’s something we keep exploring creatively.
There aren’t a whole lot of places on the internet that feel genuinely personal, optimistic, and forward-looking, so that dream-catchy quality of Pinterest is something we should hold onto for dear life and shout from the rooftops. It’s what makes us different, and what keeps us dreaming.
