Afterpay leverages e-commerce success and Rebel Wilson in first global campaign

Dive Brief:

Afterpay, an Australia-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, has launched a multi-million dollar global campaign, per a company press release. Titled "Pay Better with Afterpay," the effort features the brand's first-ever U.S. TV spots, one of which debuted during the Billboard Music Awards on May 23, with a second scheduled to air during "The Bachelorette" premiere on June 7 that will run through the season.
The campaign's TV activation stars Australian actor Rebel Wilson explaining Afterpay's BNPL concept with multiple humorous analogies. Beyond TV, the launch also includes digital, social and out-of-home (OOH) creative spanning 17 major markets worldwide.
"Pay Better with Afterpay" is the latest example of a digital brand capitalizing on pandemic-era success with a major campaign. The move also speaks to how marketing attention is increasingly shifting to retail as e-commerce continues to boom.

Dive Insight:

Afterpay is looking to leverage its 2020 gains with a global campaign running across multiple channels. While most industries faced significant tumbles during the pandemic, digitally-minded ones fared well, including e-commerce and the BNPL brands helping to drive its future. One of these brands benefiting from homebound shoppers is Afterpay, which saw sales increase 112% last year compared to 2019, according to its most recent annual earnings report. Now the payments service joins other 2020 winners with a clear message to consumers worldwide.

As shown in the first of its two TV spots, Afterpay is mobilizing its campaign to spread awareness of its product. Considering its incipiency in the payments market, BNPL is still a foreign concept to many shoppers, which is why Rebel Wilson uses simple, albeit comedic, analogies to explain the brand's policies to curious extras. Supplementing this effort is a deployment of digital, social and OOH creative, including interactive murals and billboards with pithy messages like "They say time is money. We say take your time."

Also notable about Afterpay's campaign is that it is targeting younger consumers by placing its TV spots amidst programs in which those viewers are particularly interested. For example, 18-24 year-olds accounted for 68% of viewership for the 2019 season of "The Bachelorette," per CreatorIQ data cited by Nexttv. This targeting makes sense given that Afterpay considers Gen Z the most crucial demographic for the future of e-commerce, according to a post on the company's blog.

Retail is heating up for marketers as e-commerce trends spurred by the pandemic appear to be settling in. Last week, Google announced new additions to its Shopping platform in an effort to lure retailers and marketers alike, while Facebook is also building out its e-commerce capabilities. American Express, a potential competitor of Afterpay's, recently launched its first global campaign in three years in order to emphasize its own membership program.