Old El Paso was one of the first marketers to leverage Pinterest's Promoted Video unit by targeting food enthusiasts with a simple recipe and animating the preview as they scrolled back and forth, resulting in four times more memorability than a non-video ad.

The Mexican food brand tapped the new ad format to target cooking enthusiasts using the Pinterest mobile application and showcase one of its basic recipes in an enticing light. Old El Paso took advantage of Pinterest?s brand measurement collaboration with Millward Brown Digital to examine the campaign?s results, which culminated in a significant lift in brand awareness and purchase intent for its products.

?Old El Paso was looking for a way to make its products stand out more on the Pinterest platform and make them more engaging to viewers,? said James R. Jarzab, supervisor, media group, West at Millward Brown Digital. ?The goal was to create some easy to follow, engaging video content to showcase Old El Paso products in an interesting way.?

Heating up brand visibility
Old El Paso served as the alpha tester for the social network?s new Promoted Video unit, which lets brands engage in storytelling with a video created to spur purchase intent.

The Mexican food marketer also sought to leverage the stop-motion video unit to ramp up brand metrics, such as recipe intent and Pin awareness.

Prior to launching the campaign, Old El Paso examined its target audience?s behavior across Pinterest?s platform and found that dessert-related content is saved more often than recipes for appetizers and lunch combined. This prompted the brand to center its Promoted Video on a recipe for Mini Churro Taco boats ? a dessert that does not require baking.

?It shows, ?look how easy this is,? and how simple using Old El Paso products can be,? Mr. Jarzab said.

Pinterest?s Promoted Video format captures individuals? attention through an interactive preview displaying the clip's best branded content. The preview animates as users scroll backwards and forwards.

This makes the motion completely adaptive and allows the user to be in control of the viewing experience. Once a Pinterest user decides to watch the entire video, he or she can click to enable the sound and view the clip in the social network?s new native player.

Old El Paso opted to target ?foodies? with this campaign ? individuals who actively save food-related content to their Pinterest boards.

Millward Brown helped measure the campaign?s effectiveness by leveraging Pinterest?s in-app survey solution as well as various control groups.

Unfolding positive results
Old El Paso?s Promoted Videos were four times as memorable as non-video ad units, suggesting that interactive clips are best-suited to capturing social media users? fleeting attention.

The longer format of the video also resulted in consumers who viewed it feeling more favorably toward the brand and more likely to consider Old El Paso to be creative.

Targeted users also drove a 7.9 percent increase in purchase intent for Old El Paso products, since many were interested in testing out the featured dessert recipe on their own.

Pinterest has been proven to directly affect individuals? purchasing decisions, with research revealing that 72 percent of Pinterest users have bought something that they saw on Pinterest in a real-world shop and 64 percent of Pinterest users actually look at items that they have pinned while they are in-store (see story).

The social network may see an onslaught of other consumer packaged goods brands clamoring to use its Promoted Video format to target foodies in the near future.

?Pinterest has made a lot of effort to make sure these food marketers are getting the best learnings they can from its platform,? Mr. Jarzab said. ?I think that sometimes it can be intimidating for someone to see a recipe with 10 steps.?

?A video could be a great way to not only provide the recipe, but showcase how easy it is. It can be very instructional.?