Pinterest has announced its new inclusive discovery feature that allows pinners to narrow beauty search results by a skin tone range.
This feature, currently in beta, aims to make the search for relevant beauty content easier for pinners of all races and ethnicities. Pinterest explained it is starting with four palette options, each palette representing a different range of skin tones. Pinners can select a palette to narrow search results when looking for beauty ideas.
The new feature is meant to help all pinners—from hairstylists to makeup artists with different clients to an individual looking to try out a new style at work—find relevant and on-trend beauty looks for everyone.
Reportedly, 200 million people around the world use Pinterest each month. Each week, 70% of active Pinners discovered a new beauty or grooming product on Pinterest and 89% say Pinterest offers ideas for what products to shop for.
Data reported in "Pinterest Category Usage Study, 2017," states:
- 70% discover, search for and create a board(s) of looks/styles they can use every day;
- 60% learn how to create a new look/style for a special occasion (e.g. wedding, prom, party);
- 40% show a pin/board to a stylist;
- 40% create a board/wish list for products they want to buy; and
- 34% find a specific product for immediate purchase (within the next month).
In December 2017, Pinterest commissioned market research institute, GfK, to examine how Pinterest drives pre-purchase inspiration and discovery. The results were reported in "Pinterest in the Path to Purchase among its Weekly Users."
Pinterest Drives Inspiration and Discovery
- 89% of pinners said Pinterest offers ideas for what beauty and grooming products to shop for; and
- 70% discovered a new beauty and grooming product on Pinterest.
Did You Know...
- More than 200 million worldwide monthly active Pinners;
- More than half of Pinners and 75% of signups are from outside the U.S.;
- Male monthly active users have grown more than 50% YoY;
- About 70% of Pinners are saving or clicking on Pins (and not just visiting);
- There are 100 billion Pins;
- 80% of all Pinners access Pinterest via a mobile device;
- Pinterest is available in more than 30+ languages;
- 1.5 million + businesses on Pinterest ;
- 2 billion + idea searches every month; and
- 600 million + visual searches monthly.
Update
Global Cosmetic Industry spoke with Vikram Bhaskaran, beauty vertical strategy lead at Pinterest, about the new feature and what it means for the future of Pinterest's beauty category.
Global Cosmetic Industry (GCI): What were the origins of this project and how has the inclusive beauty movement driven the concept?
Vikram Bhaskaran (VB): Pinterest is all about helping people be the best version of themselves. Personalization, from a very foundational perspective, is core to our mission. We know that women come to Pinterest to engage with beauty. One of the most requested things that pinners wanted to see was content that was matched their individual tastes and preferences. We built this based on user feedback as much as we did around the larger cultural zeitgeist, as we see the beauty space focused on inclusivity and diversity.
GCI: How was Modiface's technology leveraged within the new feature?
VB: Modiface is very critical to this launch. We wanted to work with a technology partner who already had a software development kit (SDK) that allowed us to map out skin ranges and then do machine learning on the technology to train Pinterest and get smarter. Modiface helps us to rank and query the billions of pins in the beauty category and help us learn and categorize them based on shades and color. We also have a human evaluation element, called Sophia, that combines human intelligence and machine learning and makes this really powerful.
GCI: What have you learned through this process? Have there been any revelations during the building of this feature or post-launch? What are some of the key takeaways?
VB: We've learned that we have to continue developing and innovating across all categories to give our users the best content and ideas to reinforce Pinterest's core vision. In a category like beauty, you really see it come to life. If a pinner sees beauty content that doesn't map to their skin tone, it's a really bad user experience.
We just rolled out this feature, it's still the first inning. Our goal, like any new product launch, is to continue to iterate and learn. The launch only touches on one part of beauty, we don't have a feature for hair texture, for instance. We're starting with the most obvious category that allows users to look at color and shades but we believe this is just the beginning of a lot of innovation around personalization. Getting beauty right is key because it is one of Pinterest's biggest categories.
Parham Aarabi, CEO of ModiFace added, "We are very excited by this first step in our partnership with Pinterest. Leveraging our AI capability to make a search on Pinterest more personal and useful makes a great deal of sense. We look forward to expanding our partnership with additional capabilities and technologies over the coming months and years."
