IN DETAIL: AJ Coyne, Head of Marketing, KLARNA
In the latest episode of the In Detail podcast, Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion speaks to AJ Coyne, Head of Marketing at Klarna UK.The buy now, pay later revolution has shaken up not only the finance industry but the retail industry for good. And the trailblazer in this field is Klarna, the disruptive Swedish bank with a penchant for pink branding that has become the finance provider of choice for a millennial generation that has turned its back on traditional lines of credit.Klarna has been adopted by retailers across the UK and particularly enthusiastically by the fashion industry where giants such as ASOS, Ted Baker, Gym Shark and Ganni use the service to offer their customers the opportunity to try before they buy through a range of options such as buy now, pay later and paying for their purchases in interest-free instalments.But Klarna is more than a bank and is fast repositioning itself as a shopping platform in its own right curating retailers’ offers on its ground-breaking app.The man in charge of managing the brand image of this rule-breaking business in the UK is AJ Coyne. AJ’s background is in advertising, having worked for giants such as Ogilvy, McCann and Clemenger BBDO in the UK and Australia. He was also head of marketing at the UN’s animal welfare charity The Lion’s Share, but on his return to England was drawn to the opportunity Klarna presented.It hasn’t all be plain sailing for Klarna with the buy now, pay later market under scrutiny and questions around encouraging young people to spend beyond their means, but in Klarna-style, far from hiding away from these debates it wants to lead them and that is what Coyne is doing. He talks to us about his background, how he sees Klarna’s future evolving, along with its customer base, which is older than media reports would have you believe. He also talks about the future of retail and how he’s managed to take on this challenging but rewarding role entirely remotely as a result of the pandemic.