The number social media websites, which can help brands promote their products and services, goes far beyond such giants as Facebook or Twitter and now includes a range of fast-developing platforms, like photo-sharing service Pinterest. Launched on 2010, it has 10 million monthly and is growing even faster than today’s kings of social media did on their initial stage. The more people use the service, the bigger is the audience and the more effective it is to promote something there—knowing that, Honda, which created its page on Pinterest less than a week ago, is rolling out a new activity dubbed ‘Need a #Pintermission’ for the all-new CR-V on this platform.
“It’s such a fast-growing social-media network and seemed like a really good, different, creative outlet for us and a chance to use a visual medium to promote our cars,» commented Lauren Ebner, assistant manager of social media at American Honda Motor Co., to Ad Age.
Photo: The ‘Need a #Pintermission’ activity print, www.pinterest.com/honda/need-a-pintermission
The campaign is definitely inspired John Lennon’s quote “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. The brand is giving $500 to five of the most active pinners, asking them to take a 24-hour break from spending their time on the website and realize all those things they have been pinning about—they will return the favour by sharing the images from their short leave on Honda’s Pinterest page after coming back. Two of them have already taken the challenge—one of them is going to London, and the other one is heading to Hawaii.
Since women are the most active users of Pinterest, the campaign is targeted at female (they generate nearly 85% of activity on the platform as reported by ComScore, which also states that most of the site’s users are upper-income consumers). A series of four prints is also designed to appeal to women—one of them is saying “I can’t cook any of the recipes on my board because I spend all my time pinning about them. I need a #Pintermission” and the others are featuring a female body doing some exercise and a cute dog.
«The car is definitely targeted toward female. From our research, it seems women are looking for a smaller SUV that drives like a car and has the utility and space they need,» commented Ms. Ebner.
With this initiative, Honda has joined the team of leading car brands, which are exploring the opportunities Pinterest can give them. Recently, Peugeot has launched a competition on the platform, encouraging users to solve puzzles with different car models, looking for the missing pieces on the brand’s Facebook page and website, and pinning them. Most of other automotive leaders just have their boards on Pinterest and are not rolling out any promotional activity there. So, Pinterest’s potential is yet to be discovered by them.