GroupM Next, the innovation unit of GroupM that operates Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare in Canada, has announced a licensing agreement with Pinterest analytics company, Curalate.

The tool, which uses image reconition to track “pins” was launched by Apu Gupta, CEO and co-founder, Curalate, and his team earlier this year after he says they realized image curation and sharing site Pinterest marked a shift in how social media was being presented.

“Traditionally social media was about people and places and Pinterest was really about things,” he says. “We felt that shift was going to have strong implications across all marketing channels. We also noticed the ways conversations happen on Pinterest are very different from how they happen on traditional social networks, with the primary difference being that people are communicating with pictures instead of words. When people do that they rarely mention the brand that they are talking about, because it is like the brand is implied in the image. The problem with that is that if you are a brand and people are not using your name, you have no idea that people are talking about you.”

Curalate, which will be free for all GroupM clients through the licensing deal, tracks brand mentions as well as those of competitors, Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Next, tells MiC.

“The natural client category starting point is retail and we fully expect the GroupM retail clients to be interested, that is where a lot of Pinterest action has started,” he says. “I think we are going to see automotive and CPGs, especially ones that are involved with food have a great deal of interested in what Curalate can do for them.”

Photo: Buddawiggi, Flickr Creative Commons