Pinterest is considered by many to be one of the OGs of the creator economy, but it has for years kept a lower profile when harnessing monetization opportunities. Could that be changing in 2026?
Digiday has learned that Omnicom Media is partnering with Pinterest to let the former’s Creo influencer agency reach the latter’s access to the creator community, bringing shoppability to some of its offerings and gleaning intelligence that it can feed into its Omni platform.
Part of the appeal in collaborating with Pinterest is that, unlike some other social networks that attract passive viewing, Pinterest users are often there to find something in particular, actively seeking ideas, which makes creator-driven content there more potentially impactful.
At least that’s what Omnicom Media client The Home Depot thinks. “Pinterest has long been an important platform for consumers, where they find inspiration on projects as big as kitchen renovations or as simple as a fresh coat of paint. We aim to provide the tools and resources they need to make their DIY dreams a reality through radical helpfulness,” said Allison Kolber, vp of integrated media at The Home Depot. “This integration allows us to bring together organic inspiration and the world of both influencers and social commerce to maximize impact.”
According to Kevin Blazaitis, president of Creo in the U.S., it’s that intent of Pinterest visitors that appeals to clients. “We really like the idea of that intent-centric community — when people are on Pinterest, they have an intent that they’re taking, whether they’re furnishing out their home, or they’re manifesting where they want to travel to,” said Blazaitis. “It’s that behavior that we really wanted to capture, and that community is really big for that.”
The collab, which is active in the U.S. but aims to be global by end of year, has three main elements to it. It starts with creator discovery, integrating Pinterest’s Creator Directory into Creo’s Influencer Discovery Agent through a dedicated “Pinterest Flag,” enabling Creo to match up Pinterest creators to its brand.
The second element pumps Pinterest’s API into Creo’s AI-powered Content Strategy Assistant, giving planners the chance to create Pinterest-friendly content, either seasonal or just general Pinterest-y stuff. And finally, the collab lets Omnicom clients build shoppable boards with creators, boosted by paid media.
The shoppable boards, in a test campaign, exceeded expectations, said Zaryn Sidhu, svp of social for Omnicom Media North America — the team went in hoping to optimize traffic and on top of it generated better than expected sales results (although he declined to identify the client).
“The results we got from this campaign were quite incredible. From an engagement perspective, completely blew our benchmarks out the water. Also, from a ROAs perspective, we saw really strong results,” said Sidhu. “The fact that this can unlock sales outcomes, even if we’re not using it at its full potential yet, just really speaks volume to the expectations we see long term with the shoppable boards.”
“This uniquely connects creator authenticity, predictive intelligence, and commerce features to give Creo’s planners a new arsenal of Pinterest tools,” explained Soniya Monga, vp and global agency leader at Pinterest. “We’re providing brands with a new cultural radar, powered by Pinterest creators, to inspire shoppable experiences for users and results for advertisers.”
Much of Omnicom Media’s moves announced at CES this week were informed by research conducted by Joanna O’Connell, Omnicom Media’s chief intelligence officer. In her report The Future of Brand Influence, she dug into the notion that consumers are gradually shifting from being influenced by institutions to being influenced by other people — it’s largely a matter of who they trust, and not far from good old word of mouth. “You have this kind of trust thing that’s happening that’s so powerful and so important in these environments,” she said.
And Dru Sil, executive director of product strategy for Omnicom’s Omni platform, is making sure all that intelligence gleaned — with the Pinterest collab as well with partnerships announced this week with Google, Walmart and Amazon — is depositing into the right places within Omni. “A big part of what we need to do is basically bring in these signals from Pinterest and put them alongside a lot of the other signals that we’re using to be able to produce kind of holistic insights” that make Omni smarter, said Sil.