Klarna Creates Live Shopping Experience on Animal Crossing
After launching in March, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has gained quick popularity among millions of gamers. Released early in the pandemic, the title has notably caught the attention of a wide audience including the fashion crowd, which has made continuous advancements in making the virtual experience a designer haven.
Today, Klarna will further the Animal Crossing experience in the form of a limited-time, virtual pop-up in its new influencer partnership, the global payments and shopping platform. The virtual pop-up will give players an in-game shopping experience and feature fashion favorites from influencer Micah “Noodles” Mahinay, re-created by gaming fashion designer Kara Chung.
The Klarna pop-up will feature he Klarna app’s ability to allows users to create and share wish lists as well as follow and share wish lists created by friends and influencers by showcasing items on Mahinay’s wish list. Mahinay’s Klarna wish list is curated with 10 streetwear fashion must-haves including an Extreme Rain jacket from The North Face, crescent moon-print jersey top from Farfetch and a Pleats Please Issey Miyake asymmetrical tank from Totokaelo.
Starting on Aug. 17 at 10 p.m. EST players are able to visit the Klarna pop-up on Mahinay’s Animal Crossing island with the opportunity to get her wish-listed items for villagers to wear in the game. The activation will also include a social media component allowing players to win the real-life items by posting a photo of the experience on Instagram. Mahinay will be livestreaming the event on her Twitch account.
The pop-up represents the latest of several activations by Klarna to engage and inspire its Millennial and Gen Z audience. Last week, the company partnered with Cosmopolitan for its virtual shopping festival, “Hauliday.”
“With the growth of e-commerce, the fashion industry is increasingly leveraging experiential technologies such as virtual events and gamification to reach new audiences and drive business growth,” said David Sykes, head of U.S. at Klarna. “We’re excited to offer our customers a completely immersive shopping experience through the Animal Crossing phenomenon and combine retail and entertainment for merchants to uniquely drive brand awareness and consumer engagement.”
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