Pinning down the zeitgeist: WPP plugs Pinterest trends into its planning machine

NEW YORK: Trends used to take time. Now they arrive fully formed at breakfast and die by lunch. WPP Media has decided to stop chasing them manually and start piping them straight into the veins of its planning operation instead.

The media giant has struck a deal with Pinterest to embed Pinterest Trends directly into WPP Open, its proprietary planning platform. The integration makes WPP the first agency with bespoke API access to Pinterest’s trend data—essentially giving its planners and clients a cultural early-warning system that updates in real time.

“Culture moves fast, and trends can make or break a campaign,” says WPP Media executive vice president and global head of data and partnerships Amanda Grant. “The challenge isn’t just spotting what’s popular—it’s knowing what matters and moving at the speed of behaviour.”

Pinterest, where 500 million  users actively search for inspiration rather than scroll passively, has become something of a crystal ball for marketers. People pin wedding themes six months out, Halloween costumes in August, and Christmas gift ideas before the turkey’s cold. That forward-looking intent makes Pinterest’s data particularly valuable for brands trying to get ahead of the curve rather than jump on bandwagons already rolling downhill.

Through the new integration in Open’s Strategic Insights module, WPP teams can now access trends without leaving their planning console. No more manual research. No more educated guesses about whether “cottagecore” is peaking or “clean girl aesthetic” is yesterday’s news. The system serves up search volumes, seasonality patterns, and trend evolution data, filtered by demographics, categories, keywords and what Pinterest calls “moments”—those cultural inflection points when something goes from niche to mainstream.

The partnership reflects a broader industry shift. As cultural relevance increasingly depends on speed—and algorithms decide what gets seen—agencies are racing to automate the insights that previously required armies of junior planners trawling Reddit and TikTok. WPP is betting that hardwiring Pinterest’s signals into its planning workflow will help clients spot opportunities before competitors do, and avoid backing trends that are already fading.

“Today, cultural relevance is shaped by two forces: the trends that spark ideas and the creator voices that amplify them,” Grant notes. The Pinterest integration tackles the former; presumably, humans still handle the latter.

Whether this turns WPP’s planners into trend-spotting savants or simply gives them better excuses when campaigns flop remains to be seen. But in a world where “brat summer” can dominate global marketing discourse for three months before vanishing entirely, having Pinterest whispering in your ear certainly beats guessing. After all, if you’re going to jump on a bandwagon, you might as well know which direction it’s heading—and how long before it crashes.