Pinterest Inc. hit the demographic jackpot after it launched
four years ago, becoming the digital scrapbook du jour for blushing brides,
arts and crafts enthusiasts and home decorators hunting for ideas and
inspiration. About 42% of online U.S. women use Pinterest, according to a Pew
Research survey released this month, a coveted audience with enormous spending
power. Among its social peers, only Facebook Inc.’s site boasts a
higher percentage of the online U.S. female audience.
But Pinterest’s success with women has also created a
conundrum for the business. The company has outsize aspirations to become the
go-to place for discovery on the Web. And yet the other half of the world’s
population has largely stayed away from the site in part because of the stigma
that Pinterest is a clubhouse for women.
The same Pew survey showed that just 13% of online men in
the U.S. use Pinterest, up from 8% a year earlier. Digital analytics firm
comScore estimates that about 71% of the site’s 72.5 million visitors in
December were women, making it the most female-skewed social platform. The male
experience on Pinterest has been similar to visiting a women’s department
store. Now Pinterest is trying to make it easier for them to find the men’s
section.
The stakes are high. This month, Pinterest began selling ads
to marketers for the first time. Venture capitalists valued Pinterest at
$5 billion last year despite little to no revenue on the belief it can
compete with the likes of Facebook, Google Inc. and Twitter Inc.
for advertising dollars. Pinterest’s new ad, called a “promoted pin,” targets
specific users based on their interests, location or searches. The ads show up
in search results or when users tap on a category of pins. But men aren’t
exactly doing the searching, meaning that Pinterest is potentially missing out
on a large chunk of advertising.
Pinterest executives say the gender imbalance stems from its
origins. Initially pitched by founders Ben Silbermann, the CEO, and Evan Sharp,
its head of design, as a tool to easily collect or “scrapbook” images from
around the Web, Pinterest inadvertently became a woman’s world. Its original
users in the arts and crafts community spread to mommy bloggers, home
decorators and avid cooks. Soon, it was the hot place to be for magazine brands
like “Elle” and “Real Simple.”
Part of the solution is to make it easier for men to
discover what they are interested in. Pinterest executives say they are focused
on making the site more “gender neutral.” Some of the most popular topics on
Pinterest, such as cooking, gardening and travel, interest both men and women.
So the company says it has made subtle changes, such as serving up more tacos
and pizzas alongside its popular baked goods and family meals when users are
searching for recipe ideas; or showing a range of costumes on Halloween, from
single women in the cities to Dads in the suburbs.
Regardless of the content, the gender divide may be rooted
more deeply in the site’s grid-like design, says Joan Meyers-Levy, a marketing
professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in gender differences
in information processing. No matter the reasons, Pinterest likely faces a
lengthy struggle to reel in more men like Nicholas Hardesty, an avid user since
2012 with over 35 boards and thousands of pins on subjects such as breakfast
foods and the movie “Star Wars.”
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