• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, October 19, 2016

Playing matchmaker between brands and content creators, Pinterest just debuted what it’s calling The Pin Collective.

Per the effort, select publishers, production shops and independent creators are being set up with brands that Pinterest believes they share a connection with.

Pin Collective partners should be in a position to provide end-to-end production for everything from Pins to videos to larger creative initiatives.

At launch, publishers like Brit&Co, Tastemade and PureWow are being joined by production shops including The Mill, McBeard, loop88, and Moment Studio, along with home design specialist Kyla Herbe and travel guide Gary Arndt, among other independent creators.

As a pilot, the Pin Collective produced some interesting results. Among other efforts, Albertsons Companies worked with Monica Lavin, the stylist behind Lavin Label, to develop Pins for the the company's holiday campaign.

The effort is part of a broader strategy by Pinterest to put its ad business into high gear, which has encompassed new video offerings, fresh targeting features, and cost-per-engagement measurement tools.

Last year, Pinterest also launched an in-house creative team, dubbed The Pin Factory, which serves as a creative studio for brands looking for creative ways to best reach Pinterest users.

“It’s a couple folks to start [but] it will grow over time,” Tim Kendall, Pinterest’s first general manager of monetization, said at the time.

Today, the broad launch The Pin Collective is the surest sign yet that Kendall planned on keeping that promise.