Pinterest advises brands to pin hopes on Gen Z

Brands should be creating authentic relationships with Gen Z now as this financially savvy generation grows into their wealth, according to Pinterest’s Xanthe Wells.

Xanthe Wells is the VP global creative at Pinterest

The most powerful thing a brand can do right now is to create an authentic relationship with Gen Z, according to Pinterest VP global creative Xanthe Wells.

The highly desired generation, which accounts for more than 40 per cent of Pinterest users, are more financially aware and savvy than previous generations at this age, and therefore highly lucrative for marketers, according to Ms Wells.

“(Gen Z) are incredibly financially savvy. They are obsessed with learning about investments and all the things that, typically in our generations, were things you waited till you were a proper adult to learn about. They’re learning about it now, which gives me hope that they’re actually going to have spending power perhaps sooner than maybe millennials or Gen X did.”

“While they’re not in the top tier of wealth yet, we’re going to watch this dynamic generation move through to the point where they do have more flexible or disposable income,” Ms Wells told The Australian during a recent trip to Australia.

Gen Z’s attitudes to finance are of significant interest to Pinterest as the group accounts for the largest and fastest-growing demographic on its platform. It comes as the brand continues to report strong growth following its first billion-dollar revenue quarter in Q4 2024. Pinterest reported an 18 per cent jump in quarterly revenue to reach $US1.15bn, while its full-year revenue increased 19 per cent to $US3.64bn.

The social content platform is firmly focused on Gen Z’s appetite to spend as it courts brands and marketers looking to tap into the platform’s highly engaged audience. Pinterest’s unique user experience, which encourages users to pin ideas and inspiration to boards, similar to collages, has created an environment where users have a higher purchase intent and are 1.4 times more likely to take a shopping-related action than users on other platforms.

This environment, which is also deemed as a more positive environment to other social media sites is also a bonus for advertisers, with Pinterest spruiking research that suggests users spend more time on ads in positive environments, where the ads are seen as more trustworthy, interesting and likeable.

These positive platforms also increase purchase intent by up to 94 per cent.

Ms Wells said Gen Z’s attitudes to advertising and mar­keting were vastly different to previous generations.

“They engage with content that feels authentic, and ads aren’t necessarily ads to them, because they’re digital natives, they’re so used to seeing them. And if the ad is interesting, visually arresting, authentic, it is part of their journey. They’ve accepted it.”

Authenticity is crucial for connecting with Gen Z, and like every generation before them they can spot an impostor coming.

“A lot of brands feel that to be relevant to Gen Z they have to look and sound exactly like them, and they can smell that from a hundred yards away.

“One of the shifts we had to make with the brand was to stop chasing cool and really focus on offering something of value.

“We realised early on that at Pinterest, when it comes to advertising or marketing, we’re the ­gallery, we’re not the paintings. We’re the platform that has all this incredible creativity happening; it’s kind of like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factor. We’ve got all this incredible stuff and our job is not to try to beat this stuff. It’s to shine a light on the great creative things that are happening and offer something of value.

“We’re not saying, I’m cool, too. Look at me, because that just reeks of desperation.

“The typical corporate structure often has older people at the top, who are a totally different generation to the younger folks at the bottom. Brands and corporations really have to listen to the Gen Z’s on their teams and trust them, it’s a leap of faith,” said Ms Wells.

She believes brands need to tap into the Gen Z mindset to understand and engage this generation as they become more powerful.

“One of the key parts of Gen Z is how they think of themselves and how that’s different than generations before. They definitely believe their identity is multifaceted. It’s fluid and it’s changing all the time. They might be one version of themselves one day and the next day it’s a totally different style and they’re kind of collaging their identity from different style elements. Whereas previous generations had to pick a lane. You were a jock or a hippie or a goth and you had to commit to one style. Pinterest allows Gen Z to experiment with who they are and we give them tools to do it,” she said.