Honda recently joined Peugeot, Volkswagen and Subaru as one of the few car brands establishing a presence on Pinterest. To gain the attention of Pinterest “natives,” the brand created a campaign to engage top “pinners” and encourage them to enjoy some of the content they’ve been pinning – out in the real world.
The auto brand officially launched its Pinterest page last week. Lauren Ebner, assistant manager of social media at American Honda Motor Co., told Ad Age that “It’s such a fast-growing social-media network and seemed like a really good, different, creative outlet for us and a chance to use a visual medium to promote our cars.” She also sees Pinterest “as a way to drive people back to our website.”
Honda’s Pinterest campaign is based on identifying top “pinners” and then offering them $500 each to take a 24-hr break from the site (called a “Pintermission”) to engage with content they’ve pinned – either buying products or visiting places from images they’ve posted to the site.
How effective will this be for drumming up awareness and engagement with Honda’s Pinterest page? According to Ebner, “We’re just dipping our toes in the water here with our first campaign, but it will be a good opportunity to market some of our vehicle launches [in the future].”
The brand is also focusing its “pinning” on the female-targeted Honda CR-V, a solid plan given Pinterest’s largely female demographic.
Will auto brands find success on Pinterest, and be able to drive traffic back to their websites? Honda is reaching out to top influencers on the platform and has already targeted Pinterest’s female demographic – what’s next?
