Pinterest unveils new ad pricing models and first video ad unit, a Promoted Pin called Cinematic Pin, which animates as the user scrolls down or taps on it
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the moment Pinterest's advertising business stops being a test and becomes a product line. After its beta Promoted Pins were shared as often as organic pins and the company moved ads directly into users' home feeds in early 2015, it is now layering on the two things a real ad platform needs: flexible pricing models and a differentiated format.
Cinematic Pin matters because it is Pinterest's first native video ad unit, built for the scroll rather than borrowed from other feeds — and the related coverage shows where that bet lands: mobile-only click-to-play video in the US and UK within a year, then video across search results and feeds with measurement partners Moat and Nielsen, then full-screen promoted videos.
First-order effects
- Advertisers buying Promoted Pins gain new ways to pay and a premium scroll- or tap-activated video format, giving brands a reason to shift budget toward Pinterest beyond static pins.
- Pinterest's sales team can now package video inventory at launch instead of waiting for advertisers to repurpose existing pin formats.
Second-order effects
- The format's reception drives Pinterest's subsequent build-out: mobile-only click-to-play video ads in the US and UK follow in 2016, and by 2017 video runs in both search results and feeds with Moat and Nielsen handling measurement — each step widening the advertiser funnel.
- As video inventory expands, measurement partners become gatekeepers: brands will not scale spend without third-party verification, which is exactly when Moat and Nielsen enter Pinterest's stack.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Pinterest converges on the same destination as its later Idea Pins release — a platform where organic creator video and paid promotion blur into one content surface, making the ad product inseparable from the feed itself.
The trend: Feed-based platforms are rebuilding their ad products around motion — pricing flexibility plus native video units — as static promoted posts give way to scroll-triggered video inventory.