no. 14: everything is an ad.
pinterest, cinematic ads, oddli
yesterday i woke up to cooler air in the city and already felt myself recognizing a slower pace, in place of the summer-time madness. welcome, september!
lately, i’ve also noticed the pace of advertising slowing down. and what i mean by that is i’ve seen more and more ads mimicking a movie feel and emulating a cinematic experience rather than “true” advertisements. while this may not be backed by science, i have noticed shift in how to sell to the consumer. perhaps it’s because we are tired of being sold to like “THIS IS AN AD” and we actually prefer a softer “this is an ad”.
some of the best advertisements are often the ones you don’t even know are ads until the end (at least, those are the ones i enjoy most). i want to be taken on a story, a mental escapade, and i want to ignore the impending reality of an overt advertisement asking me to spend 150+ dollars on a pair of shoes that i don’t even really need. meanwhile, some platforms, like pinterest, have become absolutely insufferable with the volume of ads on the platform.
pinterest is suffering a death by ads.
pinterest used to be a space for ideas, but ads are dominating the once social media platform. according to digital marketing agency omnicore, two-thirds of pins on the platform are now brand or product-related. take a look at what my feed looks like right now:
listen, i am all here for a good ad, but capital one taking up half of my screen? no thank you. in the last two years, i probably have logged onto pinterest five times maximum. each time, i get off the app within a minute because i feel as if i’m drowning in advertisements for credit cards, banks, bags, and furniture. while they aren’t per say seeing a huge decline in their usage, i was curious to see if i was alone in my thinking. i asked a few of my friends my age, and they acknowledged pinterest suffered a death by ads, but some were unbothered by it. while others,
, and myself, very bothered:
cinematic ads engage me the most.
cinematic advertising has been around for quite a while: “if we look at cinema as a language, complete with its own vocabulary and grammar, we’ll find it provides the perfect conduit to convey your brand's message; what your company stands for”. to capture a consumer’s attention in less than 10 seconds, i like the simplicity of “24 hours in _” or “day to night” in a brand’s clothing. it’s more applicable to the everyday person who is going into the office, coming home, changing, and going out with friends — even if it’s not the influencer’s authentic day in the life. see below
and ads that have come across my feed in the last week or so:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
i personally enjoy this style of advertisements on tiktok, especially because brands recognize they have to fight for your attention to build a brand story: “instead of continuously blasting the product name, and its attributes, in the face of the viewer these new advertisements take a page out of the books of filmmakers and offer a commercial that focuses on the overall viewing experience instead of force-feeding the product down the consumer’s throat.”
gen z consumers want more from ads.
gen z consumers are notoriously ad-averse, with 99% hitting “skip” on ads and 63% using ad blockers to avoid advertising. how do you get me interested in your brand? cinematography, a story, a vision, not hard-selling me on a product. oddli’s latest campaign absolutely blew my mind from a consumer, brand, and fashion POV — it’s telling a story through film. if you watched the campaign, let me know what you think in the comments!
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
💭 i want to hear your feedback and thoughts:
have you noticed ads consuming all of your pinterest feed? have you stopped using it because of it?
do you enjoy cinematic ads?
are there brands you think are doing their ads really well right now?
✨ before you go, september is a very important month to me because it is childhood cancer awareness month. if you didn’t already know, gold is the official color of pediatric cancer, with a mere ~4% of federal funding going towards treating kids. you can learn more about my little brother’s fight against cancer here.
if you have been enjoying my work so far, please forgo the subscription pledge amount and donate to the faris foundation instead, linked above. happy september — let there be gold! ✨
📚 what i have been reading lately, linked here for you:
a great report by vogue on how gen z broke the marketing funnel
a piece by adweek on engaging advertising for gen z
pinterest ads are everywhere validation
Cinematic ads stand out to me in a digital marketing space filled with content creation and at-home influencers. IMO, higher production value says: this is a "real" business that put money, time and effort toward a conversation with their intended customer. And if you're going to sell to me in this oversaturated landscape, it better be a quality pitch!
I actually don't use Pinterest enough to notice the ads, but I did notice Pinterest itself has outdated content in terms of current trends. You have to type in really specific key words to find the aesthetic you want. Sometimes I'll see relevant ads on there that actually make sense with the search and can be easily confused as a pin.