This feels both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time.

Today, Pinterest has published a new report which shows that Christmas-related searches are seeing a major increase, months out from the event, as people look forward to what they hope will be a major post COVID-19 celebration.

As per Pinterest:

“In the face of COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders, people are looking forward to looking forward. 2020 has been a hard year, and consumers are craving the comfort of the holidays. They want this season to feel more festive than ever before, and they’re asking for brands to help them get there.”

As you can see in the above graph, holiday searches on Pinterest jumped 77% YoY in April. That includes a 3x increase in searches for “Christmas gift ideas”, while other queries like “holiday recipes” and “Christmas” were up more than 90% and 80% respectively.

But more than this, as Pinterest notes, Pinners are looking for brands to assist them in maximizing their Christmas celebration:

“Globally, nearly half of Pinners say they want brands to help them take the holidays to the “next level, [while] 4 in 10 Pinners say that they want brands to help them bond with loved ones and create special moments with family this year.”

I mean, those sound like guided questions, but still, the point is that Pinners are looking for ways to really ramp up their Christmas celebrations in 2020, and marketers can look to tap into this to maximize their engagement and response, even beginning now with related tie-ins.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that COVID-19 will be all done and dusted by December. We all hope it will, we hope that a vaccine will be available or better treatments will have been formulated – but there’s nothing, as yet, to suggest that there’s and end date in sight for the crisis. 

Sorry to rain on the Christmas parade – but even so, optimistically, we will be able to all get together on Christmas, and Pinterest’s data shows that people are excited and looking forward to the event.

So what are Pinners most interested in?

There’s a heap of opportunity here. It may feel strange pitching to consumers with Christmas-themed offerings so far out, but as per Pinterest’s data, that’s where attention is right now. And if that’s where consumers are looking…

You can get more Pinterest insights and tips in the new “Earlier Than Ever” guide which you can download here, while Pinterest is also launching a new holiday hub, which features “new insights and research, creative inspiration and other resources to make it easy for brands to reach holiday shoppers on Pinterest”.