Ashley D. Su 
Klarna – the buy now, pay later fintech company – is trying to grow its user base by being part of the culture conversation.
The Swedish platform already has a large base of 90 million buyers worldwide, including 18 million in the United States, which Klarna Marketing Director David Sandström says is the fastest growing market. of the company. With access to so many consumers, the past year has been a mine of new data on online shopping behavior, as the pandemic has dramatically increased the number of people transacting over the internet.
That said, with more shoppers online, Klarna had an additional need to put her payment option (pay up to four payments, for one) in front of a lot more people, which Sandström said in the last episode of the Digiday podcast. , led his team to accelerate their advertising strategy in the second half of 2020. His marketing team has been tasked with leading this charge by getting creative on emerging social media platforms as well as working with media brands and celebrities to tap into its pre-existing, trusted audiences and fanbases.
Here are some conversation highlights, which have been edited slightly for length and clarity.
As older generations embrace online shopping, Klarna is adjusting its marketing strategy
We’re not trying to reach an older target audience with our larger brand campaigns like with a Super Bowl commercial, or when we’re doing things with Snoop and Lady Gaga. Instead, make sure we’re crystal clear at the time of purchase. The other thing is, I think the digital media space lends itself well enough to start segmenting based on media. So here in Europe, probably also in the United States, we have a fair amount of news pages online that cater to that exact target audience of 55+. They are even newspapers called News55, simply because they are addressed to them. So really tailoring our message and our communication to that target audience, not only in content, but actually in media choice, that was also important.
Social shopping has yet to achieve the best user experience
[What] they will fix, it is only a matter of time, it is the possibility to check on TikTok. This experience is below par right now, but in all fairness it is below almost any social platform. It’s poor on Insta, it’s poor on Facebook, it’s not a good experience, I was actually shocked at the quality of Instagram shopping when it happened. I’m not sure they succeeded, to be honest.
Marketing on emerging platforms
My social philosophy is that the platform that best caters to creators is going to win. This is why I think Facebook failed in the last couple of years because my mom is basically a top creator on Facebook. So for brands, I think I’m not associated with the platform itself, not associated with the capabilities, but actually harnessing the immense creativity and imagination that these people have. [is the key]. It is beyond the astonishing imagination that you see on TikTok. Any kind of brand brief now says, “We want to throw a TikTok challenge,” but have the opportunity and the ability to start something like this with some help from creators – and get your brand into a pop-up discussion – cultural – at least for now, that’s the holy grail.
