Page 46 - AdNews May-June 2020

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the world, with nearly four million of them in Australia so far.
Lee-Skelton says her team has kicked off by helping provide creative content that is relevant to the market.
“In Australia, one of the core focuses for us is to continue to work with businesses in this mar- ket to make sure we are creating the best localised experience for people on the platform,” she says.
“This is by us working with brands, working with publishers in the market and also working with creatives.
“If you’re just looking at last year, we’ve continued to grow the user base globally to help bring our mission to life, which is to give everybody their inspiration to create the life they love.
“The more people are using the platform, the more local con- tent will come onto it. We can see now more than ever how making sure we’re serving up local con- tent that is going to be relevant to people and their lives is incredi- bly important.”
The audience of Pinterest leans heavily towards women, who make up 70 per cent of its user base, and while Lee-Skelton sees them as a valuable asset, she’s also looking at attracting more men as a way to boost its audience.
“The Australian market has had a number of challenges. We’ve had bushfires, we’ve had floods, and now we have the coronavirus as well.” Carin Lee-Skelton, country manager, Pinterest
The top categories on ideas-sharing app Pinterest are beauty, style, home and food. 70 per cent of users are women.
“We’re very proud of the women we have on Pinterest and the fact they’re finding value in our services, and we know they are the finan- cial decision makers in our top categories, such as food, style, beauty and home,” she says.
“But we also know that a third of our audience are still men, and we continue to be attracting more of them by increasing the relevance of content. Regardless of whether we’re thinking about men or women on Pinterest, what is really important is that the mission of the company is to bring everybody the inspiration to create a life they love, no matter where they are in the world, and no matter what demographic they are.”
Pinterest launched advertising in Australia and New Zealand in 2017. Globally, the company’s 2019 quarter-four revenue hit US$400 million, up 46 per cent year-on-year. Full-year revenue grew 51 per cent year-on- year to US$1.14 billion.
Like all businesses, Pinterest has had to adjust to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the past few months. While it’s created challenges for the business, the platform was boosted as people passed time while stuck at home around the world.
In the early weeks of the pandemic, the platform saw an all-time high in activity, with more searches and saves during one of the first weekends in lockdown than any other previous weekend in its history.
“We know this is a very, very troubling time for many people and businesses and we’re fortunate enough we can work from home,” says Lee-Skelton.
“But from a Pinterest perspective, now more than ever, people are turning to Pinterest to find things that are going to be useful and helpful in their immediate day-to-day life.
But even though Pinterest has benefited from a boosted audience, the pandemic leaves Lee-Skelton unable to predict the long-term impact