Klarna debuts its first Big Game commercial, ‘The Four Quarter-Sized Cowboys’
- Klarna recently launched its Big Game commercial about four quarter sized cowboys starring Maya Rudolph for Super Bowl Sunday.
- The Big Game campaign marks the buy-now-pay-later competitor’s largest marketing campaign in the U.S to date.
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Klarna debuted its Big Game commercial ahead of Super Bowl Weekend. The format highlights its “Pay in 4” offering which gives customers the option to pay for their shopping in four interest free payments. The commercial features actress and comedian Maya Rudolph as the “four quarter sized” cowboys in a fantasy Western town.
“The campaign reflects Klarna’s brand philosophy of combining quirky wit and humor with astylized aesthetic to create immersive new experiences to engage consumers,” said David Sandstrom, chief marketing officer at Klarna. “Our goal here was to showcase Klarna’s interest-free Pay in 4 offering by bringing it to life literally in a fun and unexpected way.”
In the commercial, four tiny Maya Rudolphs purchase a pair of boots with four separate payments. Klarna’s BNPL service assumes checkout costs at the time of purchase. Customers pay back Klarna over a scheduled time period through four payment installments with zero interest and additional fees if they pay on time.
The global payments and e-commerce provider recently reported that it started off 2021 having doubled its total number of users over a year to 15 million customers in the U.S.
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More than 1 million U.S customers have been joining Klarna each month since October 2020. The Big Game commercial campaign marks an expansion of the Swedish fintech’s customer acquisition efforts as it represents the company’s largest U.S marketing campaign so far.
“As the largest sporting and advertising event of the year, the Big Game plays a huge role in mainstream culture,” said Sandstrom. “Given our incredible growth in the last year especially in the U.S, we also wanted to make a big statement of commitment to our U.S users as well as support for the overall retail industry.”
The Klarna app has seen strong growth, reaching 3.5 million monthly active users as of the end of December while also recording an all-time high in shopping volume in the same month. The app averaged 60,000 new daily downloads in December and totalled nearly 4 million more app downloads than its direct competitors last year.
Video marketing has seen considerable expansion since the onset of the pandemic and is projected to increase further this year as more banks and fintechs embrace the medium to connect with their customers on a deeper level.
“Banks have been using video and TV due to the unprecedented worries that people will stop trusting banks due to the past economic crashes,” said David Baddeley, director of Scottish Trust Deed. “Both the 90s and 2008 stock crash have meant that people have had enough of the way that banks have operated with the help of our money, stored in our bank accounts but used by the banks for their own gain.”
As the population has transitioned to working from home and using their homes as offices, financial firms are increasingly turning to video and TV to reach potential customers.
"And it worked, even with the pandemic, banks have shown that they are still there to 'help' us if we are struggling financially and have alternative ways to paying back debt -- all we need to do is talk to them,” he said.