CASE STUDY | TRUSTLY

A smarter story for a radically different moment.

Trustly commissioned research into the future of payments in travel.

Then the world stopped flying.

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01 | THE BRIEF

Original intent meets harsh reality.

Trustly — the Swedish fintech unicorn that's a leader in alternatives to card payments, asked for help creating a research-led whitepaper.

The intended audience it knew well — payments and finance leaders in airline carriers and OTAs. And on the topic of payment tech innovations for the travel sector… something they were well-placed to take a credible view on.

02 | THE CHALLENGE

The collapse of global travel.

Almost overnight, a sector hungry for innovation and optimisation was dragged into the reality of operational and economic crises… globally grounded fleets, refund backlogs, collapsing revenues, and an uncertain path to recovery.

The original intent no longer matched the reality the industry was facing.

It would have been seductively easy to default to yet another knee-jerk, COVID changes everything campaign. Instead, the project evolved into a three-part editorial series that entered the conversation more sensitively: acknowledging the scale of disruption without becoming alarmist, sensationalist, or drifting beyond the client’s domain expertise.

Before the pandemic, the conversation around travel payments centred on customer experience, frictionless transactions, and digital innovation.

But as the sector entered crisis mode, priorities changed.

Travel businesses were suddenly grappling with liquidity pressure, operational disruption, and an increasingly frustrated consumer. A report focused purely on future-facing innovation risked sounding disconnected from the realities executives were dealing with day to day.

So, the approach turned as much to curation as commentary — connecting wider industry pressures back to questions of payments, customer trust, cash flow, and operational resilience.

03 | THE REFRAMING

Repositioning payments as part of a broader conversation.

As the conversation shifted again, so did the editorial focus: from immediate disruption, to stabilisation, to the longer-term recovery outlook for the travel sector.

The resulting series explored how payment systems intersected with wider business pressures across the industry, helping position Trustly as a commercially credible voice during one of the most turbulent periods the sector had faced.

And helping show empathy to an audience facing unprecedented disruption. Not by chasing headlines, but by connecting with what the reader actually needed in the moment.

04 | THE OUTPUTS

A three-part series for an extraordinary moment.

The result was a three-part thought leadership series that created a sustained platform for dialogue with a critical audience, at a critical time.

Rather than reducing the ambition to fit the moment, we elevated the conversation — connecting payments to the wider pressures reshaping travel, and helping Trustly remain relevant when attention was scarce.

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If you’re working through something important, I’m always open to a conversation.

Usually around something complex, unresolved, or important enough to warrant thinking through properly.

thomas@thinkstuff.media

uk.linkedin.com/in/ThinkStuff

BASED IN CORNWALL, UK

Working with clients globally.

ThinkStuff