Hey,
Issue 2 is landing earlier than planned. A newsletter is easier to judge with a few issues out already.
This week: Klarna, and the idea behind the pink.
How Klarna made a payment button famous
Think about what Klarna sells. A button on someone else’s checkout page. You tap it, and that’s the whole relationship.
That’s a hard thing to build a brand around. Here is how Klarna did it.
Before 2017, Klarna was a Swedish payments company that looked like one. Blue, serious, full of legal language, built for online shops more than for shoppers. Its own CMO, David Sandström, called the look boring.
In August 2017 it rebranded around one idea, “Smoooth”: paying online should feel easy. New logo, new look, new checkout, and a voice that talks to shoppers like people, not like a bank. The colour became hot pink, in a category where everyone else was blue. On purpose. Sandström called it “forbidden combinations”: take what finance avoids and use it. Banks are among the least trusted industries, so looking nothing like one helps.
Then came years of proving it. In the US, Klarna started with a subculture instead of the mass market: RuPaul’s Drag Race stars, 2017. In January 2019 came Snoop Dogg as “Smoooth Dogg”. Three ads: him being crowned, him in a giant bed with Afghan hounds, him spreading gold peanut butter on toast. Silly, and it made the point without one word about instalments. Paying is smooth, and so is he. He also became a minority shareholder, so he was no rented face. Lady Gaga (2020) and A$AP Rocky (2021) kept the same tone. In February 2024 the look moved towards fashion-style imagery. Still pink, still straight-talking, with a bit of wit on top.
What changed, and what didn’t. By 2021 buy now, pay later was going mainstream, and Klarna started moving from cheeky newcomer to a brand the whole household knows. The stars changed with it: Shaq fronted a holiday campaign, Paris Hilton a Y2K pop-up, both built in-house. The message got more grown-up too. Pay in full, or split it into interest-free instalments, your call. Freedom, not debt. But look at what stayed fixed: the pink, the wit, the plain-spoken voice. Only the celebrity changes. That’s why it never feels like random celebrity spend. The face is the variable, the brand is the constant.
Why it worked
I can’t prove what caused what. This is my read of the choices.
Paying has no face. The product disappears at checkout, so the brand had to be the thing people remember.
One feeling, never dropped. Colour, voice and talent all said smooth.
The category was distrusted, so Klarna looked as unlike it as possible.
The big name had a real stake. Snoop owned shares, so it felt believable.
My take
What I love: the Snoop campaign. One idea, no explanation needed. Proof that humour sells.
As a side note - when the neo-banks arrived, most took the same road: lifestyle brand, merch drops, a pop-up, colourful cards. N26, Revolut, Monzo. Some do it well. Some don’t...
If you want your lifestyle pivot to work it needs to come from something true about the product, otherise skip it.
AI in brand work: a voice file
Your voice breaks first when more people write for you. 30 minutes.
Collect your 10 best pieces.
Ask your AI tool for the rules: sentence length, words you use, words you never use.
Edit that into one page. That’s your voice file.
Test it. Same brief, with and without the file. Show both to a colleague, blind. Which sounds like you?
Then use it as a checker. Paste a draft, ask where it breaks the voice.
Klarna’s tone held across Snoop, Gaga and a 2024 redesign. Write yours down.
That’s issue #2.
Next time: another fintech, another look at why it grew. If someone on your team should read this, forward it. Got a brand you want analysed? Hit reply.
Imo
Sources
Adweek, “How This Fintech Company Pivoted Its Marketing to Be Where the Cool Kids Are”, July 2019: link
Klarna launches Smoooth brand, PR Newswire, 29 Aug 2017: link
Campaign, “Can a bank be pink? How Klarna built its brand on forbidden combinations”, 2021: link
The Drum, Snoop Dogg and “Smoooth Dogg”, 17 Jan 2019: link
FashionNetwork, Klarna’s evolved brand messaging, 8 Feb 2024: link
The Drum, “Tickled pink: how Klarna’s vibrant marketing made finance fun”, 1 Nov 2024: link