Pinterest performance+
Writing the language of AI for the people who have to sell it—and the people who have to trust it.
Pinterest Performance+ is Pinterest's AI-powered advertising suite—automated bidding, ROAS optimization, AI-generated creative backgrounds, campaign automation. Powerful product. Complex technology. But the product wasn't the whole problem.
The bigger problem was perception. Enterprise advertisers didn't see Pinterest as a lower-funnel platform. They came to Pinterest for discovery—for the top of the funnel—and stopped there. Performance+ was Pinterest's declaration that the platform drives results all the way through. From discover to do. From the first pin to the final purchase.
Getting enterprise brands and agency holding companies to believe that required more than a product launch. It required a story.
The brief
Enterprise advertisers are skeptical of AI tools by default. They've seen black-box products that promised automation and delivered confusion. They've lost control of campaigns they didn't understand. The instinct is to pull back, not lean in.
The temptation in that situation is to lead with the technology—to prove the AI is good enough. But that's the wrong instinct. Technology doesn't earn trust. People do.
The creative challenge was to build a campaign that started with humans and ended with humans—one where AI was the tool and the marketer was the hero. Where the story wasn't "Pinterest's AI is powerful" but "you, with Pinterest's AI, are unstoppable."
The through-line that anchored everything:
AI and automation when you want it. Control when you need it.
Eight words. Two promises. The reassurance enterprise advertisers needed—in the order they needed to hear it.
The challenge
The global debut was Pinterest Presents 2024, Pinterest's annual global marketing event of the year, streamed live to the world's top brands and the top 6 global agency holding companies.
The event was built as a "Pin It to Win It" themed film with executive keynotes woven into the narrative—a sports championship story that cast marketers as the athletes and Performance+ as the competitive edge. Ilana Glazer played the Rocky Balboa-style coach: pushing, challenging, rallying the audience toward a performance breakthrough. The message wasn't "look what AI can do." It was "look what you can do, with the right tools in your hands."
I shaped the Performance+ narrative for my channels and audiences—taking the foundation of the launch and translating it into copy that cut through across:
Pinterest Presents film and event:
supporting the narrative arc, the transitions between film and keynote, the voice that made a technically complex product feel exciting, urgent, and winnable for a global advertiser audience.
Pinterest Academy:
educational copy that translated machine learning capabilities into clear, goal-oriented language for advertisers learning to use Performance+ for the first time. The same positioning—control and automation in balance—had to work as instruction, not just inspiration.
Email:
campaign communications that moved enterprise and agency buyers from awareness to action, maintaining the narrative thread from Presents into the post-event sales cycle.
Social:
posts that carried the "Pin It to Win It" energy into paid and organic channels, extending the launch's reach and reinforcing the Performance+ story in the feeds of the advertisers we most needed to move.
Across every surface the challenge was the same: keep the human at the center. Let the AI be the tool. Make the marketer the champion.
The work
Global launch across 4 regions—NAMER, LATAM, APAC, EMEA
Campaigns reaching the top 6 global agency holding companies
120% to goal on Pinterest Presents 2024 RSVPs
Most advertisers who adopted Performance+ saw an average 10% decrease in CPA—the product result the narrative was built to earn
Campaigns reaching the top 6 global agency holding companies
120% to goal on Pinterest Presents 2024 RSVPs
Most advertisers who adopted Performance+ saw an average 10% decrease in CPA—the product result the narrative was built to earn
The results
AI products don't fail because the technology isn't good enough. They fail because the story centers the wrong thing.
Center the AI and you get skepticism. Center the human and you get belief. That's the creative insight that made this campaign work—and it's the insight I bring to every brief that sits at the intersection of technology and trust.
Start with humans. End with humans. Everything in between is just the how.
The takeaway
I help you build your brand so you can build the future
