At the recent advertising conference in Cannes, France, Pinterest announced its presence with zeal and whimsy.

Up and down the festival’s main boulevard, displays showcased new technology that allows users to search the digital scrapbook site using pictures taken on their smartphones. It claimed a beachfront space for the week and called it Pinterest Pier, a place where colorful signs highlighted the company’s popularity among its users and the potential that represented for brands. (“See the possibilities,” a sign declared at the beach’s entrance.) Refreshments based on popular Pinterest posts were served, complete with physical cards that mimicked their appearance online.

The pageantry represented Pinterest’s renewed efforts with advertisers, which have escalated in the past 10 months as it looks to regain its early buzz and show what it believes sets it apart from the likes of Google, Facebook and Snapchat. Part of that includes breaking from its understated style and playing the game: In addition to its setup at Cannes, it made a splashy appearance at this year’s South by Southwest festival and has attended at other industry events.

“It’s a focus for this year, building better tools and better relationships,” Ben Silbermann, the soft-spoken chief executive and co-founder of Pinterest, said in an interview at an ad agency conference in April, where he was a speaker. A major part of that has been “educating marketers who may not be that familiar with the platform on what it is and what it isn’t,” he said.