By Yoree Koh
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.
"We're really trying to unpack and understand that so we can
communicate to [men] that Pinterest is absolutely for you," said
David Rubin, who joined as head of marketing in July from Unilever
PLC, where he worked on women's beauty and helped launch the Axe
men's deodorant brand.
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.
Marketers such as Target Corp. have generally been intrigued by
Pinterest's potential. Users post, or "pin," images they find on
the Internet to self-created photo galleries, or "boards." So far
they have pinned over 30 billion unique pins, revealing to
marketers valuable information about what they might be interested
in buying.
Pinterest's new ads, 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.
The San Francisco company's executives like to say, "We want to
do for discovery what Google did for search." In other words, when
someone wants to embark on a home improvement project or peruse
easy-to-make dinner recipes, Pinterest wants them to search for
ideas on its site.
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."
"I think the stereotype of it as a female space is probably not
helpful when you're trying to attract men," said Robert Kozinets, a
professor of marketing at York University's business school in
Toronto. "It's more stigmatizing for a man to be on a woman's site
than the reverse. The perception is that it weakens a man's social
standing."
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.
"It will take some time, but it's about trying to show this as a
bigger tent--as a utility that works for a lot of people," Mr.
Rubin said.
Pinterest has also modified the sign-up process so that the list
of suggested interests the site recommends users follow is
generated based on gender. More recently, Pinterest rolled out
personalized search results where gender is factored into the
results.
For instance, depending on whether a male or female is browsing,
a search for "workouts" generates fitness tips that are as
different as the pages of "Men's Fitness" and "Women's Health." In
the past, the results for male users would have included a mix of
men's and women's workout regimens. Pinterest says this feature,
now available to all of its users, has led to increased engagement
on the platform.
Indeed, according to comScore, the average male user spent 1,590
minutes on the site in December, more than four times as much as a
year earlier. Meanwhile, women spent 4,938 minutes, up 42% from the
prior year. At the same time, the number of pins added to
Pinterest's content library associated with male-oriented
categories has grown. Over the past year pins for "geek" content
grew 175%, "cars and motorcycles" increased 134% and "men's
fashion" jumped 122%.
Pinterest declined to provide user numbers, but says male user
ranks grew 54% in the six months through November, outpacing the
rate of female sign-ups.
The company has also made sure its content is of interest to
both genders when it launches in international markets. As a
result, the user base is more of an even split in markets such as
Korea, India and Japan, according to Pinterest, which is available
in over 30 languages.
"It gives me a lot of confidence that over time even the U.S.
may go to a much more balanced distribution," said Tim Kendall,
Pinterest's head of product.
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. Ms. Meyers-Levy's
studies have shown that women are able to process information more
comprehensively and to do so at a lower threshold. Men are more
selective and tend to focus on the essentials.
In other words, Pinterest's busy design may create an
information-overload for men. "If this was a magazine, they'd turn
the page," Ms. Meyers-Levy said. "It works for females because they
like detail, they like more complexity."
In response, a Pinterest spokeswoman pointed out that the
product and site were designed by three men. Co-founder Paul
Sciarra left the company in 2012.
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." The 34-year-old director
of religious education in Owensboro, Ky., says he likes collecting
things and organizing them in one place, but his male friends have
largely stayed away.
"They don't make fun of me per se, but give me a sideways glance
or a little bit of a 'why are you on there?'" Mr. Hardesty
said.
Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com
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