• by Colin Kirkland , March 27, 2025

In line with its “Joy Revolution,” Pinterest is insistent on positioning itself as the most positive social-media platform on the market, while attempting to prove to advertisers that their campaigns will perform better in a positive-leaning space. 

A new study commissioned by Pinterest makes the case for brands that “it pays to be positive.”

Collecting data across ads from different verticals on various social-media platforms, global media intelligence company Magna used biometric sensors and eye-tracking technology in a lab to assess people’s emotional responses to seeing different content, as well as marketing mix modeling (MMM) simulations, to study the impact of positive advertising environments. 

According to the study, people were more engaged when operating in a “positive space.” Respondents were 20% more emotionally engaged with content they saw on platforms they personally deemed to be positive, and spent 15% more time looking at ads. 

Platforms viewed as positive were also found to amplify advertising performance on key metrics including boosting purchase intent (+35%), brand favorability (+49%) and brand preference (+44%) -- positivity outperformed the creativity and entertainment attributes in these areas.

Magna states that when the same ad was shown to a respondent on different platforms, they found that an ad seen on a platform they viewed as positive was perceived as “twice as trustworthy, twice as interesting and 1.5x more likeable.”

The report does not note how many of the respondents found Pinterest to be the most positive social-media environment in their mix.

But compared to non-positive social media spaces, positively viewed platforms rated as up to 94% more impactful in driving purchase intent. In the MMM simulations, the same creative and budget generated up to 24% more sales when brands incorporated viewability and positivity in their media-buying strategy. 

“We’re going further toward inspiration and positivity,” Pinterest’s Content Officer Malik Ducard told MediaPost last month. “We built our platform around this idea. It’s foundational for us: optimizing for healthier outcomes, for collaboration, versus viral or ephemeral experiences.”

Notably, the “inspiration” factor may be integral to how users respond to Pinterest ads compared to ads on other platforms, regardless of positivity ratings.

Ducard has made it clear that Pinterest’s audience comes to the platform with more purpose due to the active nature of the app. Pinterest has been rated as a more positive space than its competitors -- i.e. Meta, X, TikTok -- but ads may have a unique impact because of the app’s users’ intent-driven approach to content. 

“They’re looking to discover, to do, to act,” Ducard told MediaPost. “That mindset leads to a completely different experience, especially for brands.”