Why would a social media platform tell you to get off your phone?

“How did they live their lives without posting about it? How did they know they liked something if the thing they thought they liked hadn’t already gotten any likes?”

These are questions a young girl asks in a Pinterest anthem film released last month, against a backdrop of retro home movies and archival footage from Pinterest employees. So far, the film has more than 54 million views on YouTube and is currently running in select cinemas alongside branded “silence your cell phone” messaging.

The anthem is part of the platform’s annual brand campaign, and it aims to encourage people to get off their phones and differentiate Pinterest from other social media platforms that incentivize endless scrolling, Sara Pollack, VP and global head of consumer marketing, told us.

The latest video from Pinterest’s campaign builds on this ethos, showing a college student finding inspiration on the Pinterest app—and then closing it to go dancing. As Google and Meta platforms increasingly focus on short-form video consumption, Pinterest is looking to be seen as a place for “helping [people] find inspiration online so that they can go and live offline,” Pollack said.

The campaign taps into a growing consumer concern about the long-term effects of excessive phone use, which is manifesting in ways like the rise of “dumb phones,” offline social clubs, and IRL experiences. Pinterest CEO Bill Ready has vocally supported social media bans for children under 16 in contrast with other social media execs, some of whom are defending young people’s use of their platforms in court.

Last week, Pinterest reported an 18% YoY revenue increase, surpassing $1 billion for the first time, as well as an 11% YoY increase in global monthly active users, reaching a record 631 million users. While it may seem counterintuitive for a social media company to encourage people to ditch their phones, Pollack told us that Pinterest is confident it can continue on a growth trajectory while still essentially telling users to touch grass.

Living in the moment

It’s one thing to be performatively offline, but it’s another to actually sign off. Ahead of Coachella last month, Pinterest made headlines when it announced that its festival activation, the company’s third, would be entirely phone-free. Inside the installation, visitors were greeted with Yondr pouches to store their phones before partaking in various activities.

“We were throwing away a standard playbook of how experiential marketing measures itself in terms of, ‘Are you seeing that immediate social sharing? Is the hashtag going viral?’” Pollack said. “We took all of that off the table, and as a brand, there is some nervousness with that.”

Even without UGC, the effort seems to have paid off. According to Pollack, Pinterest saw a YoY increase in earned media attention as well as in social conversations around its Coachella activation, with around 70% of social comments discussing the concept of going phone-free. Creator Quenlin Blackwell, who went phone-free for the festival in partnership with Pinterest, shared a recap of her experience that generated more than 400,000 likes on Instagram and TikTok combined.

“While we didn’t have an immediate hashtag-virality situation that weekend, I think we stimulated a much bigger and broader conversation that is a much more meaningful one,” Pollack said.

When Pinterest’s marketing team was strategizing about the overall messaging of this year’s campaign, Pollack said her team wasn’t sure if going phone-free would resonate with younger crowds the same way it does among those who grew up in a more analog world.

“We wondered, if you have only grown up with technology by your side, would you have that same reaction? Would you have nostalgia for something you may not have actually lived yourself?” she said.

But based on the responses to things like the anthem video and the Coachella activation, she said her team has been pleasantly surprised to find that the concept seems to be universal. To continue the push, Pinterest plans to put out two more spots to show how the platform can help people live “as richly as possible” offline, Pollack said.

Signing off for good?

How does less time spent on social media benefit Pinterest, one might wonder? Pollock said Pinterest’s focus is on encouraging “time well spent” on social media, and noted that the platform doesn’t measure success by view time. Instead, it’s focused on metrics like ad clicks and conversions.

The hope is that the campaign boosts Pinterest’s awareness and brings both new and existing users to the platform, Pollock said. Once there, instead of endlessly scrolling through pins, she hopes users find a recipe or outfit inspiration—and then leave the platform to make it happen.

Ready said on Pinterest’s latest earnings call that the company is banking on AI to expedite that process. “Every search, click and save gives our AI more signal about who a user is and what they care about, which allows us to deliver more relevant and personalized experiences across the platform,” he said on the call. “Higher relevance drives deeper engagement. Deeper engagement increases retention and stronger retention brings users back with higher intent.”

As for whether going offline is a message that will catch on among other brands? Pollock said it depends.

“We see consumer blowback towards greenwashing or when a brand feels disingenuous about the message that it’s putting forth,” she said. “For those who can do so credibly, I think they too will be met with a consumer audience that is very ready for this message and very ready for ideas about how to do something differently.”