Smoooth

Read the campaign story

Klarna introduced its smoothness-led film campaign in March 2016 with DDB Stockholm and the Perlorian Brothers. Contemporary coverage describes unusual visual actions, including a sliding fish, that turned a service quality into something immediately perceptible. The work relied on sensory association rather than a detailed explanation of a checkout process.

Klarna’s August 2017 release explicitly refers back to the previous year’s campaign and describes extending Smoooth into its wider identity and customer touchpoints. That expansion is one chapter of the same family, not a separate origin. The record demonstrates a coherent creative direction; it does not establish that payment decisions became appropriate, affordable or free of consequences for every user.

Editorial interpretation: a sensory metaphor gives an intangible service an ownable visual vocabulary. Teams can recognise and reproduce a quality through movement, texture and timing without repeating the same functional claim in every execution. The strategic discipline is to define which aspect of the experience the metaphor represents. Ease of interaction is not the same as low cost, sound judgement or an absence of obligations, especially in a financial context.

Editorial interpretation: friction is not always a defect. Some pauses help people understand a commitment, review terms or correct an error. A useful adaptation should distinguish unnecessary complexity from information and deliberation that protect the user. The creative can make an interface feel approachable while still respecting those pauses. If an attractive metaphor encourages people to skip essential understanding, the campaign has simplified the wrong part of the experience.

Translate one quality, not the whole proposition

Choose a specific attribute such as clear navigation and find a visual action that expresses it. Avoid allowing a pleasant sensory treatment to imply that every dimension of the service is equally effortless. Test the association explicitly: ask what viewers think the metaphor promises. Their answers can reveal whether a narrow intention has become a much broader and unsupported expectation about outcomes.

Retain useful friction in the real journey

Map the steps that prevent mistakes or help people understand terms before removing anything in the name of simplicity. The goal is not the shortest possible route at any cost. Clear confirmation, review and cancellation information can make a service more trustworthy even when they add a moment of attention. Creative teams should work with the people responsible for those safeguards rather than treating them as obstacles to conversion.

Make a repeatable system with clear boundaries

Define the movement, tone and visual logic that connect executions, then write down the claims the system must not imply. This lets new work feel related without becoming an unrestricted promise of ease. A strong identity is a framework for disciplined variation, not permission to make every message more seductive. Review the emotional impression alongside the literal wording, because viewers often remember the feeling first.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: use an original animated metaphor for a fictional document-organising interface, then show a simple prototype with visible review and undo steps.

Measure task understanding, mistaken inferences and whether users notice the review step. Compare with a literal demonstration using the same interface. Treat speed as secondary to correct comprehension and the ability to reverse a mistake.

Stop if the metaphor implies risk-free financial behaviour, conceals obligations or encourages users to bypass information needed for an informed choice.

• Keep the test unrelated to borrowing, payments or purchases.
• Explain exactly which interface task the metaphor represents.
• Offer a static, accessible version and retain clear error recovery.