SOCIAL MEDIA

Update: Pinterest Has Continued Just Vibing

Pinterest’s Q3 earnings report came out, and those earnings are really good. Like, 58% jump in year over year (YoY) revenue and a monthly active users increase of 37% YoY good.

Many marketing experts believe that Pinterest’s stellar Q3 came from shifting advertising dollars during the Facebook boycott. But is that the whole story?

Facebook → Pinterest

Sure, Facebook may have had something to do with Pinterest’s impressive Q3. From July to September—the approximate duration of the FB ad boycott—ad spending on Pinterest rose almost 40% YoY, according to Mediaocean.

• And Pinterest was second only to LinkedIn in terms of user trust in social platforms in 2019, per Business Insider Intelligence. 

Big picture: Because Pinterest has a reputation as a brand safe environment, it was a logical place to turn when Facebook was under scrutiny. 

Not so fast… 

Judging by its Q1 and Q2 numbers, Pinterest probably would have grown as an advertising platform with or without the FB debacle. 

• In Q2, Pinterest saw only a 4% increase in total revenue, but a 39% increase in monthly active users YoY. And during Q1, revenue jumped nearly 35% YoY and monthly active users grew 26% YoY.
• Pinterest’s YoY growth rate is stronger than that of not only Snapchat, but also Twitter and Facebook, per Social Media Today.

But there are some good reasons for that performance, other than everyone rolling their eyes at Facebook.

Shoppability: Pinterest updated its shopping features back in September to anticipate e-commerce holiday shopping trends, as the number of users shopping on the platform increased by 50% in H1 2020. 

Ad tech investments: CFO and head of Pinterest business operations Todd Morgenfeld also told Adweek that advertisers are seeing increased success on the platform because of its recent investments in ad tech.

And, of course, peace of mind: The platform’s commitment to brand safety and solid history of combating misinformation have likely put advertisers at ease since before the FB boycotts. 

Looking ahead: The platform could become a go-to for advertisers even outside times of trouble, due to its efforts to expand advertising options and quality.

AGENCIES

Can WPP Make Walgreens Receipts Less Than 2 Feet Long?

Agency holding company WPP’s latest updates seem like a metaphor for agency life right now.

The good: WPP beat out Publicis in a media review to retain its Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) account. 

The bad: Simultaneously, WPP’s Q3 net revenue dropped almost 12%.

The...OK? WPP also said VMLY&R was its “best performing global agency” during Q3 because its revenue was down “only slightly year-on-year,” per Ad Age.

At this point in the pandemic, it feels like ad agencies are wearing sneakers without socks. Forrester researchers assume that roughly half of the agency jobs lost due to the pandemic will return—eventually, these agencies will get home and soak their blisters in an ice bath. 

• But the same researchers believe that 11% of all U.S. ad agency tasks will become automated by 2023, per Adweek. 

My takeaway: Agency holding companies like WPP are doing their best to deal with the growing blisters inside their Allbirds and also keep crushing major media reviews.

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CAMPAIGNS

Opportunity Knocks

From Daylight Saving Day to Take Your Houseplant for a Walk Day (mark your cal, it’s July 27), micro-holidays have always been a thing in marketing. And when executed correctly, they can actually be really effective conversion tools. 

For example, last year, mattress company Nectar’s Daylight Saving Day sale was themed around the idea of adding an extra hour to the day. 

• By the 25th hour of the sale, Nectar was literally selling a mattress every ten seconds, making its sales volume quadruple that of a normal day. 
• So naturally, Nectar transformed Daylight Saving Day into its own annual micro-holiday—Nectar Day. 
• Nectar is now working with 100 influencers to hype 2020’s #NectarDay giveaway, in which shoppers can nominate a first responder via social to receive a free mattress.

Zoom out: “The value of opportunity days lies in creating an emotional connection between consumers and brands. By giving consumers this ‘reason to believe,’ we turn what could be just a sales holiday into a special event that drives brand awareness as well as sales,” Nectar parent company Resident CMO Gil Efrati told Marketing Brew.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai entered the Senate boxing ring to discuss Section 230 on Tuesday.
• California’s proposed new data privacy law, Prop 24, is expected to pass Tuesday. 
• Google saw a quarter of advertisers boycott its service in addition to Facebook’s this summer, according to a new Harris Poll.
• Snap launched its second annual Friendship Report, which isn’t as adorable as it sounds—it analyzes how people connect during Covid-19.

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FRENCH PRESS

Marketing tips to make you fancy

Jobs: We did the calculations, and about a zillion marketers lost their jobs this year. That’s why we wrote a Guide to Getting a Marketing Job in a Post-2020 World, the first chapter of which is on landing an in-house marketing gig at a brand. 

Influencers: Here’s a very groovy looking visual guide to crafting an influencer marketing strategy. 

CMOs: Watch our latest CMO Series interviews with former Publicis CGO Rishad Tobaccowala and Lindsey Slaby, Founder of Sunday Dinner.

Trends: We want to know—which marketing trends do you think were overhyped this year? How about overlooked? Tell us here. 

METRICS & MEDIA

Stat: Cannabis is a budding OOH advertising vertical—93% of ad spending in the cannabis space went to OOH in the first quarter of 2020, per Kantar. 

Quote: “Morning Brew is a super-cool company” —Henry Blodget, CEO of our new majority owner, Business Insider. 

Read: This rabbit hole of an article on whether or not social media data can predict the winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Marketing Brew stories from the last few editions.

• Man Repeller’s rebrand led to its recent shutdown
• How to land a marketing job at an in-house brand
• Burger King’s ‘Scary Places’ campaign debuted with mixed reviews