Pinterest takes a “first step” toward working with big brands
Pinterest plans to announce a new type of pin on Sunday that will highlight a large number of major U.S. retail brands, marking the company's “first step” in integrating images with associated brands, and making it easier to click through links and purchase items.
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement lands mid-arc for Pinterest: the company rolled out its redesigned site and new pin-discovery features to all users in March 2013, and a February 2013 study argued the service was bigger than commonly assumed and competing to be the second most popular social network. A branded pin format is the logical next move once the audience and the interface are in place.
The pickup was unusually broad — TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Marketing Land, Digital Trends, The Next Web and others all carried the story on or about May 20, 2013 — reflecting how closely the industry watches Pinterest for signs of a business model, since until now the service has been almost entirely user-curated imagery with no formal brand presence.
First-order effects
- Major U.S. retail brands gain an officially recognized pin type that attributes images to them directly, ending the era where brand presence on Pinterest existed only through unpaid user curation.
- Users get explicit click-through paths from pins to brand pages and purchase points, shortening the distance between discovering an image and buying the item in it.
Second-order effects
- Brand-attributed pins give Pinterest the structured product-to-brand data that any eventual advertising or revenue product would require — this 'first step' is the plumbing that precedes monetization.
- Retail brands acquire a measurable social-referral channel, creating an incentive to optimize product photography and catalog feeds specifically for pinning.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, visual platforms begin competing on commercial-intent density — how much shopping intent each image carries — rather than purely on engagement or time spent.
- Social services position themselves at the top of the purchasing funnel, intercepting discovery before users reach search engines or retailer sites, which pressures every consumer platform to formalize its own brand-commerce integration.
The trend: Pinterest is converting consumer curation into a commercial discovery layer, laying the data groundwork for brand monetization ahead of any formal ad product.