Good morning. This is Katie Deighton filling in for Nat Ives.

Some social media users are swearing by a way of avoiding ads on Pinterest, WSJ Leadership Institute's Megan Graham reports.

"Pro tip for those who use Pinterest and don't want a million ads every time you search something: if you add a cuss word to the end of whatever you're searching for, you will not see an ad," one creator shared earlier this month. The video from the creator going by D1 Instigator now has more than a million views and over 220,000 likes.

As an example, the creator shows the search results when she searches for "nail inspo," yielding numerous ads. Then she searches for "nail inspo s-t." "Not a single ad. It looks like the old Pinterest. You're welcome," she says.

Many comments on the video mention the high volume and irrelevance of their ads on Pinterest. Various other videos and comments have been sharing creative spins on their search queries to avoid sponsored posts.

Pinterest said its approach of not monetizing "brand-unsafe" search terms is standard in the industry.

"We're aware that some people are modifying their search queries, and we're monitoring this behavior as we continue to evaluate ways to improve the search and ads experience," a Pinterest spokesperson said in an email. "We work to make ads relevant and useful to people on Pinterest, and we regularly refine that experience based on feedback."

Web cruisers have used expletives to change results in other places-to varying degrees of success. Ars Technica reported last year that cursing would disable Google's AI overview. (Though this doesn't seem to work anymore all the time, and the experimenting I've been doing to determine this has undoubtedly landed me on some sort of IT watchlist at work.)

Pinterest's sales climbed 18% last quarter, it said earlier this month, as it logged record monthly active users and positive traction with Gen Z. But as Bernstein analysts pointed out, volume remains the primary driver of the company's ad growth. In the second quarter, ad impressions increased 16% year-over-year, while pricing rose 1%.

The Magic Number

The amount pledged by Callaway to support organizations working to prevent violence against women. The golf brand cut ties with media company Good Good Golf, which, in a video designed to promote its co-branded Callaway driver, depicted a man shoving a woman to the ground.

Further fallout:

Good Good in the wake of the scandal has pulled its title sponsorship from a November PGA Tour event... [Front Office Sports]

...and lost a reality series with the Golf Channel. [THR]

A False Equivalency

Ad veteran Mark S. Robinson, whose career has included stints at agencies including Spike DDB and Carol H. Williams Advertising, next month will release his latest book, "Pitch Black: The Best Black Ads of the Past 50+ Years."

The Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute's Patrick Coffee spoke with Robinson about connecting with Black consumers and the trajectory of corporate DEI. Their conversation has been edited and condensed.

What do marketers get wrong in trying to reach Black consumers?

Many big brands see a false equivalency between DEI issues and target marketing issues. You can have an ad that is very inclusive in its casting. To a certain degree, you as a corporate citizen should be doing stuff like that. But that is not insight into your consumer's mindset.

What does effectively using insight look like?

The U.S. Army had done research that said, Gen Z sees themselves as having a mission to make the world a better place. We said, that's all well and good, but young Black men and women are interested in making their community a better place. How can serving in the Army help them? By saying, in the Army, we'll give you a skill that you can take back to your community after you've served. That campaign worked better than the mainstream campaign.

Why have once-hot topics, like boosting advertising in Black-owned media, cooled?

The ad business is moving away from entrepreneurs and renegade individuals and toward corporations run by financial managers. Anything minority-related is always very close to the top of the list of things that they can cut. The current attraction toward AI is the same thing; if I can bring AI in, think of how many employees I can cut.

Has the recent whiplash on diversity really changed anything?

Not in any significant way. The ad business has always been extraordinarily insular. If we don't know you, then we don't understand you, and if we don't understand you, then we're afraid of you. Senior-level executives say, 'We invest so much money in training minorities and then they leave.' I say, well, maybe you ought to invest some money in retaining them.

What can we take from the pushback against DEI?

This retrenchment means less talk, but it is also less doing because there wasn't that much doing in the first place. It does give consumers an opportunity to go, 'OK, who was a fair-weather friend and who wasn't?' If I'm a smart marketer, I know what my competition is going to do or not do, and I can strategize around that.

She's Beauty and She's Grace

Thom Brodeur, a former GoDaddy marketer, promised to turn competitors of Miss USA into modern "commerce queens" when he bought the 75-year-old pageant last year. The plan isn't exactly going smoothly, The Wall Street Journal's Alyssa Lukpat reports.

The production company Brodeur contracted parted ways with Miss USA after a pay dispute. As a result, the CW, its television partner, dropped the program from its broadcast lineup with a week's notice. Brodeur said he has also sought to attract new sponsors but said a couple companies wouldn't work with the brand because of its past association with President Trump, who once partly owned the institution.

"I'm like, 'The dude owned the thing and sold it in 2015,'" he said. "I can't do anything about that. You're still mad?"

Scandals at the state level have overshadowed the run-up to the national competitions this week in Miami, and one contestant is suing the organization for defamation. Brodeur declined to comment on the lawsuit but said he was moving forward.

"Lawsuits happen. Justice prevails. Businesses keep going. Brands keep thriving. And so will Miss USA," he said.

Quotable

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