How Pinterest wins with personalized content

Episode transcript, edited for clarity

[00:00:41] Bill Thorne: Welcome to Retail Gets Real, where we hear from retail's most fascinating leaders about the industry that impacts everyone, everywhere, every day. I'm Bill Thorne from the National Retail Federation, coming to you from NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show in New York City.

And on today's episode, and I would call it a very special episode given the amount of interest by the staff of the NRF, we're going to be talking to Rachel Hardy, director of consumer product marketing for Pinterest. We're going to talk to Rachel about the consumer outlook for 2025 and consumer trends she's keeping an eye on this year. Rachel Hardy, welcome to Retail Gets Real.

[00:01:19] Rachel Hardy: Thank you so much. Excited to be here.

[00:01:21] Bill Thorne: All right. We're going to talk about your career journey and your role at Pinterest, but why do you think — and I'm talking particularly about the younger staff. They're so excited. They know Pinterest. They're on Pinterest a lot. Why would they be so excited about me talking to Rachel Hardy, do you think?

[00:01:39] Rachel Hardy: Because young people love Pinterest. And actually, our fastest- growing audience on Pinterest is Gen Z — over 40% of our audience. And they're the most engaged. They are shopping more too. And in fact, 66% of them who use Pinterest every week say Pinterest is one of the first platforms they come to, to shop.

[00:01:58] Bill Thorne: Really?

[00:01:59] Rachel Hardy: Yes.

[00:01:59] Bill Thorne: That's awesome.

[00:02:00] Rachel Hardy: So, I think young people find Pinterest really inspirational, a peaceful oasis from a lot of the noise that’s out there, and they can plan and dream. And on the retail side, really lean into their aesthetic, understand their identities, who they are, who they want to be as they're building their lives, whether that's their fashion, their home, how they want to eat.

[00:02:24] Bill Thorne: Yeah. The way that I've used Pinterest in the past, and I'm old, so I don't use it the same way they do, but I use it for ideas basically. So, I do for landscaping, for example. And then a couple of weeks ago, I had to go to this event. They called it beach cocktail attire.

I can't remember what the word was. And so rather than going through Google or whatever, I went to Pinterest because I thought, well, people will post weddings on the beach, see what that looks like. And visually, and I'm a very visual person, that really, really, really helps. That's the way that I use it. OK. Now we're going to get back to some of the things we need to talk about. So, Rachel Hardy, your career journey and your role at Pinterest.

[00:03:06] Rachel Hardy: Sure. So, at Pinterest, I lead the consumer product marketing team. And what does that mean? We're responsible for helping to build our roadmap priorities by deeply understanding our customers and their needs and what they want.

And we work to develop global go-to market strategies to grow adoption and engagement with Pinterest overall, across the many different types of things we have to offer, whether that's shopping, whether that's curations. So things like saving, creating boards, search across the board.

But prior to Pinterest, I spent my days in retail, and I spent 10 years in direct-to-consumer retail. I was an early employee at M.M.LaFleur. I helped to build that business. And I was at M.Gemi, and then I was at Studs — I joined pre-launch — which is an ear piercing and earring brand.

[00:03:59] Bill Thorne: I wouldn't know about that.

[00:04:00] Rachel Hardy: No, probably not. Also very popular with the Gen Zs. But I've always been obsessed with building consumer experiences and bridging the gap between online and offline. And how do you bring that magic? Because I love shopping. Shopping is actually my favorite activity.

And a fun fact, my very first job in retail was in college when I was at NYU. I worked at Urban Outfitters, doing women's accessories and the cash wrap, and it was one of the hardest jobs I ever had. And I spent my entire paycheck on Urban Outfitters.

[00:04:32] Bill Thorne: We pay you to shop.

[00:04:36] Rachel Hardy: Yes, correct.

[00:04:37] Bill Thorne: Right here.

[00:04:37] Rachel Hardy: Yes.

[00:04:38] Bill Thorne: Then you get the discount too. So that's a big motivation.

[00:04:42] Rachel Hardy: I love a discount.

[00:04:44] Bill Thorne: So, what does a day in the life of Rachel look like? I'm sure that there's new challenges every single day, but —

[00:04:50] Rachel Hardy: That's true.

[00:04:52] Bill Thorne: How do you prepare for your days?

[00:04:54] Rachel Hardy: Each day is different. Today I had to wake up and come here and chat with some folks about Pinterest. So, a lot of it is thinking about how we tell the story of Pinterest externally.

Sometimes it's very narrative, or thinking about how we want to translate what we're doing into meaningful stories. Sometimes it's reviewing new products that we're building and giving feedback on the design, the usability, the feasibility of them. We have a lot of fun new features launching this year, whether that's improving how people make boards and discover boards or just deeper personalization.

So, we think through the whole end-to-end journey. And then of course, creating marketing moments. We work closely to create brand moments. Right now, we're actually planning for Coachella, to show up at Coachella and think about how that experience can help people manifest themselves and as they come to plan their festival style at Coachella. But we're also thinking about, OK, when folks open the app, how do we bring Coachella inspiration to the app? Who do we bring it to? And how will we inspire them?

[00:06:02] Bill Thorne: That's awesome.

[00:06:03] Rachel Hardy: Yeah.

[00:06:04] Bill Thorne: Are you going to go?

[00:06:04] Rachel Hardy: Those are some examples. I hope so. If you're listening, Sarah, my wonderful boss, I would like to go to Coachella.

[00:06:10] Bill Thorne: I can only imagine what it's like, and I will do that from afar.

[00:06:15] Rachel Hardy: Yes.

[00:06:15] Bill Thorne: So, you're on a panel here at the Big Show, and it's exploring the consumer outlook for 2025. You're talking about some of the things that you're planning for the future, but what do you see as emerging trends that you see basically coming out of the 2024 holidays?

[00:06:30] Rachel Hardy: Yeah. This was an incredible holiday season. People were shopping.

[00:06:34] Bill Thorne: Yes, they were.

[00:06:35] Rachel Hardy: In the U.S., they spent $241 billion in November, December, and they're shopping on their phones. So actually, over 50% of consumers were shopping on their mobile phones. So we see growing spend, we see growing e-comm spend, and we see growing mobile spend, which are interesting trends, and I think that's great for the industry. But I think what's hard as a customer is we have more options than ever.

And so, also, I'm seeing, how do we use AI, which is also a huge trend that is dynamically changing the way we interact and shop? How do we use AI to help cut through that noise of choice? Because people are overwhelmed by all the choices. And how do I find the perfect gift for the person that I love?

And so what I noticed off Pinterest and also what we built on Pinterest was personalization. And this year we had our first-ever Pinterest holiday experience, where we brought gift guides from the best retailers, from influencers, publishers onto Pinterest. We saw over a billion searches for gifts on Pinterest.

So, this is a platform where people come to look for gift ideas and inspiration. As you said, it's visual. You know what you like when you see it. You want to find something meaningful. And we then took all of that incredible content, and we created a personalized landing destination we called Holiday Finds.

So when you were to open the app, it would say, "Hey, Bill. Here's some holiday finds for you." And so, we were able to take and sort through billions of images that we have on Pinterest and gift ideas and inspiration, and bring ones to you that we thought you'd like based on who you are and what we know about you.

And that really resonated, that value prop for you and that personalization, because it is so overwhelming, and people really do want to find the perfect gift or find the perfect thing for themselves and their own wishlist. And so, I think that's a trend I'm noticing, is how can you bring more personalization to the incredible but overwhelming mobile world where we love a discount. And discounts absolutely drive purchasing, but it's still a lot to sort through.

[00:08:47] Bill Thorne: Yeah. I just was talking to a colleague and she said that she gets, not all of it, but she uses Pinterest a lot for planning meals. Especially, she's got two young children, and she said it is a lifesaver. So, it's an amazing phenomenon to me. You've got all of these different demographics, all these different people that use it for different reasons. How do you stay relevant to them when you've got so many of them?

[00:09:16] Rachel Hardy: Yeah. It's a great question. Again, it's just personalization and understanding the signals of who they are, which, again, AI really helps with. Meaning, what is this person looking for right now? What have they liked in the past? So, we deeply understand their taste because of things they've saved or collections of things they've saved, or what they've titled their boards that they're saving. And so, it's really about, to your point, giving them more of what they want, but also introducing them to new ideas. And that's where you will see a lot of trends as well, in search.

The world of search is changing. Visual search is changing, where search is not just a search bar anymore, where you'll say she might type in toddler meals, which I do as well. And you can get toddler ideas. But we could also show you other things that are adjacent but relevant. Maybe there's also some home inspiration. Maybe there's also some kids clothing. Maybe there's also styles for the fall. Because people are, even though she might be looking for toddler meals, we know that there are adjacent and relevant categories that could be useful in her life. And so, it has to be personalized. It has to be relevant to her. And so, we'll take a guess at that. The more time you spend on Pinterest and the more actions you take, like saving things, the better our personalization will be. But we'll do the best we can based on her behavior, and then just understanding, well, what's popular right now. We want to take freshness into account, so we want fresh and new content. And to your point, we want diversity. We don't want to see all the same things. We want to be able to introduce new ideas.

[00:10:54] Bill Thorne: Oof.

[00:10:54] Rachel Hardy: I know. I can talk about this all day.

[00:10:59] Bill Thorne: No, it's fascinating. I do want to talk a little bit about AI. It seems to me that you are, AI — this is what AI is all about. It's basically capturing and purposing for personalization and making sure that the user is getting what they want, and they don't have to look for it. It's right there.

[00:11:21] Rachel Hardy: Correct. We want to take the work out of finding things you love, and we want you to feel like we know you. And that's when we talk to users. A lot of what they say is like, Pinterest gets me. They get my aesthetic. Pinterest knows my taste. And they're always delighted by that, and they feel like it's a best friend recommending style tips or beautiful home inspiration or vacation inspiration.

[00:11:46] Bill Thorne: Or landscaping ideas.

[00:11:47] Rachel Hardy: Or landscaping ideas, in your case. So, AI can be a lot of things, but for us at Pinterest, it's really about — to your point, there's so much. There's a lot. And how do we know what's right for you? And it's about using those signals to deeply understand what you are looking for and bringing that to you in fun and exciting ways. So, we are constantly thinking about that.

[00:12:11] Bill Thorne: So, the consumer trends for 2025, what are you thinking about?

[00:12:17] Rachel Hardy: Well, the coolest thing about Pinterest is every year we do something called Pinterest Predicts. Have you heard of this?

[00:12:24] Bill Thorne: I can't imagine why you wouldn't have Pinterest Predicts.

[00:12:27] Rachel Hardy: We get a lot of data about what's going to trend because people come early and all the taste makers come early, and we get insight. And so, we just published our trends report in December. Every year we publish it with 80% accuracy. And some of my very favorite trends, these are more aesthetic trends that show up in fashion, food, home.

“Cherry Coded” is a trend, all about these deep burgundy, like oxblood, reds for fashion, for home, for bags. “Pickle Fix” is another trend that you'll see a lot of, pickle fix, so think like pickle cocktails, pickle cupcakes, pickle foods, even pickle prints though. Even for clothes, pickle prints.

[00:13:14] Bill Thorne: Wow.

[00:13:15] Rachel Hardy: You'll see it. Yes. “Fisherman Aesthetic,” another one.

[00:13:20] Bill Thorne: No way.

[00:13:20] Rachel Hardy: “Fisherman Aesthetic,” “Castle Core.” Think medieval chain mail and dark colors. But these are the trends that we think about, and we bring to our partners as well as they're planning their year and their capsule collections or their campaigns or how they want to show on Pinterest. It's really fun.

[00:13:41] Bill Thorne: I've got to go on and look at “Fisherman Aesthetic” because I love to fish. So I'm wondering what my aesthetic is.

[00:13:50] Rachel Hardy: It's perfect for you. It could be wellies, rain boots, and definitely a cable knit sweater. Maybe a little scarf, maybe a netted bag. Maybe some tinned, canned fish. So you'll have to check it out.

[00:14:07] Bill Thorne: I am going to check it out. I promise you. I'm going to check that out. It is pretty amazing. And you're in an interesting position, I think, to do something like the Pinterest Predictions because of the usage, the number of people, the amount of information that you collect, can distill, and really see directionally where things are going with a high amount of confidence.

In surveys, it's a plus or minus three, or a plus or minus five. I think yours would be a plus or minus 0.0111 because you have it right there in front of you, and you've got a lot of people using it.

[00:14:43] Rachel Hardy: We have a lot of data, and we have an amazing research team that helps us to put these together. And an amazing creative team that kind of helps us bring these trends to life to show these examples.

[00:14:55] Bill Thorne: A pickle thing.

[00:14:56] Rachel Hardy: I know.

[00:14:57] Bill Thorne: Why pickles?

[00:14:59] Rachel Hardy: You'll see it. You'll say, "Oh gosh, this girl, Rachel, told me at NRF that pickles were in."

[00:15:06] Bill Thorne: Yeah. So because you all are right there with the retailers, what are some of the challenges that you think the retailers and consumers are going to be facing in 2025?

[00:15:19] Rachel Hardy: Yeah. On the subject of trends, right? The trend cycles move faster than ever. And I think that's really hard to keep up with as a retailer. How do you create performance assets? How do you market? Nobody has the budget, or the time to be shooting new things every single week.

And how do you plan, with your supply chain? For my retail days, that's really hard too. How do you plan and always have the right trending inventory for the moment? So I think the trends are a gift and they're also challenging to keep up with and think about how to keep up with. Now, the beauty, again, is AI in just being able to help with both asset creation.

So you'll see a lot of players and ourselves included, we have something called Performance Plus where AI can help create assets, dynamic backgrounds, or help you crop things, or just put a little lipstick on something to make it appropriate for that trend rather than having to be shooting in a studio constantly, which is expensive and almost impossible.

So you'll see a lot of amazing dynamic creative tooling coming from AI to help lean into those trends for the targeting and to reach the right audiences. So a lot of ML dynamic testing, things like this. And then for supply chain, what I think is so cool about AI as well is sometime what's old is what's new.

You might have some cherry inventory sitting somewhere that you could repackage and rebrand for the trend of the moment and think about how you do that rather than having to create a whole new line, which, unless you're Shein — Shein's incredible — and you've got that kind of supply chain going, not everybody's like that and can keep up with that.

So you can rebrand and think about it. So that's where, if you have the right metadata, if you have the right tagging, if you have the right tools, you can really quickly and dynamically lean into the right trends at the right time to capture attention.

[00:17:16] Bill Thorne: Yeah. All you have to do is look in the back of the closet for your last pickle sweater.

[00:17:20] Rachel Hardy: Exactly. You've got something sitting there.

[00:17:23] Bill Thorne: So fascinated by that.

[00:17:25] Rachel Hardy: I love that you love this pickle trend so much.

[00:17:27] Bill Thorne: Well, I love pickles. So generational trends. We could talk about the young folk and then the old folk. I think that it's hard, especially for the younger. So you look at the Gen Zs, and now you've got the Alphas coming into play, but then you also have Boomers. You have the millennials. How do you see those trends?

[00:17:50] Rachel Hardy: What's so interesting is, as I mentioned, Gen Z is the fastest-growing audience on Pinterest and the most engaged. And so we're doubling down, and as we double down and we make campaigns for Gen Z, messaging for Gen Z, and experiences for Gen Z, we notice that actually all the generations a lot of that creative is resonating with them.

So, you'll see the Alphas in the young generations, and I saw this in my previous retail experience, that they want to be a little bit older, and they want to be a little bit cooler. The Gen Z creative resonates with the younger Alpha folks or experience. And then millennials, elder millennials, like myself, want to be younger, want to a little bit cooler, and it resonates with them as well.

So, sometimes there are dynamic differences between generations, but other times, actually, we all want similar things and similar experiences, and value propositions will resonate. But I do think for Gen Z in particular, they've grown up with a smartphone. They've grown up shopping online, so their expectations are high.

They expect personalization from the gate. They expect a frictionless experience. They want to be anywhere in any time, and you have to meet them, and you have to understand where they are in their journey. So sometimes they just want to browse and look, the bizarre, get inspired.

A lot of that happens on Pinterest. They just want to get inspired. And you don't want to come in too soon and too strong and turn them off. But when they are ready to purchase, you better remove all that friction and make it one tap. And make it so, so seamless. That's a delicate balance to play of letting people discover and enjoy, but then really being ready when they need to purchase.

So, their expectations are high. They expect you to understand their intent and where they are in that journey and meet them where they are. They expect you to personalize things from the gate. That's a really big trend. And then mobile, as we said. Now over 50% of these purchases were on mobile and a lot of those were from young people who are starting to have more wallet share.

And so, we’ve really got to think about, how does this work on the phone? And that's hard. A store is always going to be the best you can touch and feel a big screen. Like me, if I'm doing serious shopping, I need to see all of my options together. But how do you tell a story in just a small square? That's a challenge. So I think that's the new trend, is the expectations are high. It has to be visually dynamic, has to be personalized, and it has to be absolutely frictionless.

[00:20:29] Bill Thorne: It's so interesting. You said you're an older millennial. You don't look like an older millennial. I am a boomer, and I don't try to look younger. I'm very content, and I don't want to be anything other than what I am, but I want to be current. So I don't want to be dumpy older.

[00:20:48] Rachel Hardy: You're not.

[00:20:49] Bill Thorne: Thank you. So I could see where you have groups that go down and groups that go up and then you just have to make sure that you have the right mix.

[00:20:59] Rachel Hardy: Exactly. The trends, you're obsessed with this pickle fix trends. Next time I see you, you're going to be wearing a pickle sweater.

[00:21:06] Bill Thorne: It's very possible.

[00:21:07] Rachel Hardy: But every generation is interested in trends. Like what's trending in the food industry and what's trending in home decor? That applies to all ages. But the way we'll design that campaign and bring it to life might have a feeling that's very current and fresh and aesthetic driven, and it might still resonate with you.

[00:21:26] Bill Thorne: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised. So what do you love most about your job?

[00:21:30] Rachel Hardy: Oh my gosh. I just love the product, and I feel really good when I tell people I work at Pinterest. Every person says, "Oh I love Pinterest." Some use it more than ever, but they'll tell me a story. They'll say, "I used Pinterest just to renovate my bathroom." or "Oh, I just used Pinterest to plan my baby nursery or when I had my wedding." Or "Oh my gosh, I am obsessed with meal planning on Pinterest." And I just love to hear those stories.

[00:21:54] Bill Thorne: Or landscaping.

[00:21:55] Rachel Hardy: Or landscaping, in your case, which I love landscaping too.

[00:21:58] Bill Thorne: I keep going back to that only because I really do find it incredibly helpful, and I get served up new and better ideas each time. I just wish I had the time to do it all.

[00:22:07] Rachel Hardy: Well, that's the thing. Not everybody has the time. And that's, again, why we've got to do the work for you. Because you don't have the time to sort through. So if you tell us that you want to see landscaping inspo, we better nail that, and we better give you all the ideas and it's going to be very little work and really fun for you.

[00:22:22] Bill Thorne: It has been.

[00:22:24] Rachel Hardy: Yes.

[00:22:24] Bill Thorne: I have a place in Florida, and it's a tropical environment. And so what would work at, let's say, the farm in Virginia doesn't work in the backyard in Florida, near the beach. So it gave me some really, really good tips on what kind of plants deal best with salt and what are the best border plants for hiding a fence or creating a green fence. It's been very helpful.

[00:22:49] Rachel Hardy: I love that.

[00:22:50] Bill Thorne: So thank you for all of your good work in landscaping.

[00:22:54] Rachel Hardy: Thank you. But that's what I love to hear. I feel like we're a platform with the best ideas and to help you find better ideas and enrich people's lives and bring them joy. We're a very positive platform, and that's something that I can feel good about.

[00:23:08] Bill Thorne: Yeah. It's true. There's nothing threatening about Pinterest at all.

[00:23:12] Rachel Hardy: No. And we deliberately keep it that way. That's a really important to us.

[00:23:17] Bill Thorne: So who inspires you?

[00:23:19] Rachel Hardy: Working moms. So I am a working mom, myself, in fact. Of course, I knew I had a big day today, and my 2-year-old was up all night, so I didn't sleep much, but I still had to put on my big girl pants and come to work, and that's really hard. And there's so many working women that I've admired.

My mother was a working woman, owned her own business in interior design. My boss is a working woman. She's got two kids and still shows up every day with grace and just makes it look so easy. And I am just in awe. And I think it's a little bit like when I worked in retail, we would call it swanning. Imagine this image, but the legs are underneath, like, ah, you're just running. You're like, "How am I going to get to the next thing?" But on top, you are graceful. You are poised. Everything's fine. So I just have a lot of admiration.

[00:24:18] Bill Thorne: I work with a number of those, and I don't know how they do it. I really don't know how they do it. And I admire and respect them so much for it. And they're incredibly effective and they're a pleasure to work with. So I want to know if you could provide me with something new that you learned recently just in general, about retail, about the consumer, about trends that you want to share.

[00:24:42] Rachel Hardy: Yeah. I just was at CES last week. I did go, and I got a chance to walk the floor, which I don't normally do. And I know we've been talking about AI this whole time but can't go anywhere without hearing about AI. And I was just really blown away with some of the trends in how AI can make our lives better.

So one trend in particular was health care, and AI for age care and health care. And one of the experiences I got to do was a platform for physical therapy where it would scan your body and you can do exercises, and then it tells you, move your arm a little more to the left or your hip is a little out of alignment.

And then that type of data helps you practice at home but also could be shared with doctors or your physical therapist to help them understand what's going on with you. And so there's this really cool world. It also scares me a little bit, but there's this cool world with just the data that we have that can bring us more experiences and more information about ourselves and link that across professionals or in many cases, your home, with doctors.

AI is a double-edged sword. You can imagine a dark world. You can imagine a bright world. And I just thought how cool that AI can help with health care and aging and families. And I was just blown away with some of the things that I saw.

[00:26:14] Bill Thorne: It is amazing to me, Rachel. I think about, the next 20 years. Back 25, 30 years ago when the internet was just making it on the scene, people were having the exact same conversation — the dark side, the bright side. How would it change humanity? How it would make our lives easier and, in some ways, more difficult?

And it's the exact same discussion that we're having with AI. The other day, I did a session, I moderated a session, and we got through an entire 20 minutes before somebody mentioned AI.

[00:26:46] Rachel Hardy: How is this possible?

[00:26:47] Bill Thorne: Exactly. I complimented them. I was like, "Whoa, we actually got to talk about something other than AI." I am excited about Pinterest. I'm excited that our people at the NRF are incredibly excited about Pinterest because they always use it. They think it's absolutely a necessary tool in their tool chest, and I'm really grateful for the time that we've had together, Rachel Hardy. Thank you very much.

[00:27:10] Rachel Hardy: Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to meet you. And thanks for having me.

[00:27:13] Bill Thorne: And thank you all for listening to another episode of Retail Gets Real. You can find more information about this episode at retailgetsreal.com. From Retail's Big Show in New York City, I'm Bill Thorne, and this is Retail Gets Real. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.