120,000 people around the world used their heartbeats to sign up for the chance to win exclusive sneakers with Klarna.
More than 350,000 sneaker fans visited Klarna’s Hearbeats 4 Sneakers site during the six days the brand campaign was live. 120,000 signed up for the chance to win a pair of the super-exclusive sneakers using their own heartbeats. Zero bots were able to join.
At the beginning of July, Klarna partnered with Highsnobiety to introduce the world’s first sneaker drop dedicated to humans and not bots – which have become a regular problem for many sneaker lovers around the globe. With the help of new technology, only participants with a heartbeat were able to enter their chance to win one of five iconic pair of kicks, for example, Virgil Abloh x Nike Air Jordan and Adidas Originals Yeezy Boost. A sneakerhead’s heart-rate was measured by putting their finger tip on the camera lens of a smartphone or desktop, providing access only to those who have a heart that beats . . . for sneakers.
The registration for the Smoooth sneaker event was open for six days, and the response from the sneaker loving community was truly spectacular, with almost 1 million minutes spent by Sneakerheads on the site. Clearly the campaign struck a note with consumers and media alike. In the initial week, the campaign got a 700+ million reach in media coverage in news outlets such as Yahoo, Trendhunter, GQ, Elle, and Hello!
As a bonus the following week, we used the same heartbeat technology to offer all true sneaker lovers a chance to get unique deals based solely on their passion for sneakers, from retailers such as adidas, FOOTASYLUM, asphaltgold GmbH & Co. KG, schuh, and Sneakersnstuff.
Best of all with this campaign, we were able to help solve the issue with bots plaguing online sneaker drop and give the world’s real sneakerheads the chance to get what they love.