Podcasts are naturally a conversational medium, and Klarna had a simple message that could run in mass-reach audio ad slots: it’s good to talk about money. But we didn’t want to simply advertise. We wanted to change behaviour.

To do that, we needed to design for a specific audience: our creators and their communities. Acast Creative’s idea was to leverage podcasts’ parasocial interactions for good — hearing the honesty and anxieties of your favourite hosts makes it easier to kickstart a tricky conversation with friends. From Kevin Twomey and PJ Kirby of I’m Grand Mam – to Kate Thornton, host of White Wine Question Time, our creators reflected Klarna’s all-adults audience as accurately as possible.

The campaign outperformed targets both for attention as well as reach, with over 19, 000 people on the waiting list for a physical copy of the game.