🌾 Oatly: Marketing Case Study - The inexplicable brand
The provocative marketing strategy Oatly uses to define its own market and create crazy campaigns. Plus: 5 top learnings for our own marketing.
“We are unconventional.”
These are the words by with Toni Petersson, CEO of the worldwide beloved oatmilk describes his company.
The oat milk manufacturer generated sales of over USD 783 million in 2023 and continued to grow by 3% in the last quarter of 2024.
Oatly is now a global love brand.
Also beloved by me.
As I write this, I'm drinking my coffee with their delicious barista oat milk.
But the beginning of Oatly, like that of Patagonia (the holy grail of sustainable companies), was not that big and popular.
How did Oatly achieve this marketing success? And what can we learn from it?
Let's take a look at that here today:
1️⃣ A short brand story
2️⃣ Brand strategy with provocation
3️⃣ Packaging as an advertising medium
4️⃣ Weird, inexplicable campaigns
5️⃣ 5 things we can learn from Oatly for our marketing strategy
1️⃣ A short brand story
Oatly was originally founded in 1994 by Swedish scientists at Lund University when they discovered that oats could be a nutritional alternative to cow's milk.
They saw a way to provide people with allergies or personal reasons not to drink dairy products, packaged it, put it on the shelves and Oatly was born.
However, the company did not have an easy time on the market for two decades. Consumers had difficulties with the unfamiliar taste of oat milk. Resistance from the Swedish dairy lobby did not make things any easier either.
When today's CEO Toni Petersson drank Oatly's oat milk for the first time, he was impressed by the sustainability of the production and the low sugar content. However, he says that he found drinking oats “unpleasant” and that he wasn't particularly inspired by Oatly's accompanying marketing.
But he saw potential.
After all, soy and almond milk was becoming increasingly popular.
So he decided to take over the company and target the Oatly brand at younger, trendier milk drinkers. Today, the company has found an audience among hipsters and coffee fans who appreciate the taste and sustainable production of oat milk. Oat milk has found a place in supermarkets, on the shelves of Viennese coffee houses and Spanish bodegas.
As of 2024, Oatly is the market leader in many countries.
Oatly has taken on the global dairy lobby.
And the brand is a love brand for many sustainable consumers.
Toni's rebranding of Oatly has paid off.
2️⃣ Brand strategy with provocation
Let's start with the heart of the brand.
Strategy is the way from A to B.
What is it for Oatly?
It is also the key to its success:
While many other brands define their strategy as “We want to get more consumers to drink oat milk”, Oatly went one step further and defined “We show why milk is the worse choice than Oatly” as the core of their strategy.
That's a clear vision and, as I've written here before, it's the key to success.
Oatly didn’t fight other plant-based brands. They declared war on dairy.
With this core in their brand strategy, they moved on to the next step.
The identification of core values and truths:
Oatly created a strategic masterpiece by building a real connection with the target group and standing for more than just a product.
Oatly made an unpopular product cool for consumers.
In doing so, they position themselves differently than most companies whose marketing is often driven by fear. Here's how they describe their creative strategy:
And so it's no wonder that they are constantly clashing with the powerful dairy lobby (which, incidentally, would not be profitable without state subsidies and would already be failing):
They went head to head with a far bigger enemy.
They were in their own words ‘f**king fearless”.Will Poskett, GRW Club
The result was a slogan that quickly reached the hearts of the masses:
A slogan for which Oatly was sued directly by the dairy industry.
Behind the strategy is the team of John Schoolcraft, who started as Creative Director in 2012. His approach of focusing on the health and sustainable benefits of Oatly and combining this with bold, fun and attention-grabbing campaigns is still bearing fruit today.
They weren't shy about undermining the dairy industry, and plastered slogans including 'like milk, but made for humans' across bill-boards. Dairy firms didn't like it and took Oatly to court. They did something that hadn't been done before: they made the 'green' choice the fun choice.
Solitaire Townsend in Solutionists
This is also reflected in Oatly's vision:
For the sake of our health and the climate, we encourage a shift from animal-based to plantbased food production and consumption.
We will make it easy for people to eat better and live healthier lives without recklessly taxing the planet’s resources by producing and delivering oat-based products that have maximum nutritional value and minimal environmental impact.
In their marketing, they stand for simplicity, authenticity and sustainability.
And they put this directly on their packaging.
3️⃣ Packaging as an advertising medium
In 2019, Oatly became one of the first brands to print its own carbon footprint on its packaging. Today, every last part of the pack is utilized and features fun, thought-provoking text that invites you to rediscover a normally boring medium.
But the brand's packaging wasn't always so exciting.
Ready for a brief look into their past?
Quite a shock, wasn't it?
Oatly's packaging was one of the first things the new management team changed. Not an easy process, as John Schoolcraft described in an interview:
We started with the packaging. It’s owned media and because we don’t have these US or UK size advertising budgets it’s really our main media. Usually, in the food industry, any change whatsoever made to the packaging would make the company very nervous that sales would dip. Brands will make slight tweaks so customers don’t get confused and the result is no one notices. We approached it differently, we just threw the old packaging out completely and were prepared to take the hit.
The aim was to get customers to pick it up out of curiosity so we intentionally made these look like we’d just made these in the basement at home. We thought that every side of the packaging there should be something interesting to read. The legal side on the back we refer to as the boring side. We know that once we’re in people’s hands, they read the copy, try us, and tend, in great numbers, to like the taste.
I remember Toni called the whole company together for a meeting, and we unveiled the new packaging. Someone stood up and said this was the worst, most childish packaging they had ever seen and asked me why I was ruining this company. People can react quite negatively to change, and for some of them, this just threatened their entire existence.
John Schoolcraft, Creative Director Oatly
By being transparent about the carbon footprint of each product, Oatly is showing its commitment instead of just talking about sustainability. Incidentally, this step was part of the larger campaign “Food Industry - Show Us Your Numbers”.
The campaign also called on other brands to publish their ecological footprint on their packaging.
And when it comes to sustainability communication, Oatly is taking an exciting step that many other companies don't manage in their marketing: they don't play the holy brand, but present themselves as a real person - an important factor, as the brand wants people to be able to identify with it.
We also see this in all their campaigns.
4️⃣ Weird, inexplicable campaigns
Oatly's marketing campaigns are a goldmine for all marketing fans. I will analyze a few selected ones here and highlight the most important key learnings.
🐄 Wow, no cow
Probably the most expensive advertising space for a TV commercial is during the US Super Bowl. And that's exactly where Oatly ran a commercial that was... well, let's say special:
A CEO who sings? No real message? A waste of money?
Despite the mixed reviews the commercial received, it successfully generated significant brand awareness and stimulated conversations on various platforms.
The design of the marketing strategy is anything but conventional. Oatly takes risks and is able to stand out in a crowded market.
And their brand feels definitely authentic.
🌾 Fck Oatly
“There’s always this one person at a party who walks in and they’re so interesting and intriguing, but you can’t quite put your finger on why… That’s who we are.”
Michael Lee, Creative Director von Oatly
As a global brand, Oatly has also generated controversy. But the way it deals with them sets it apart. On FckOatly.com, even conspiracies and scandals at and by Oatly are addressed.
The website is a “time machine for everything bad about an oat drink company” and lists some of the biggest discussions surrounding the brand.
It's a playfully sarcastic website that documents scandals they've had to deal with in the past - boycotts, bad press, online insults, etc.
What I find so fantastic about this campaign is that Oatly takes a very different approach to most companies who want to bury past mistakes as deeply as possible.
It is an aggregated history of hate toward the brand that you either get and really love or don’t get and really hate. The one thing you can’t do is remain indifferent.
Jasmine Bina, Conceptbureau
The oat milk brand speaks openly about topics that most consumers or journalists have perhaps already completely forgotten.
This takes transparency and authenticity to a whole new level.
“We’ve said everything we need to say about certain things, so why not put it all in one place?”
Brendan Lewis, Executive vice-president for global comms and public affairs Oatly
But what makes a company communicate something like this itself?
64% of millennials and 60% of Gen Z would no longer buy a brand if they didn't trust the company.
With its website, Oatly can clearly gain the trust of its target group. Because the website makes the company credible and authentic. And approachable. A perfect marketing mix.
And ultimately, they are true to themselves, because they retain their tone of voice and integrate humor into all corporate communication.
🫨 Courageous non-advertising
Oatly is known for placing huge advertising messages that do not look like advertisements at first glance.
Every placement and every piece of content is a small work of art in itself.
And they can also do this on social media:
I could show an incredible number of great headlines and visuals right now.
But what we can take away: Oatly has placed a high value on content creation since the relaunch and connects with their audience by celebrating people who embody their values.
The way we present ourselves should feel very human, not like a company. We always say that we want to be consistently inconsistent. This means that, just like real people, we are sometimes serious and sometimes not.
Michael Lee, Chief Creative Director Oatly
Oatly's marketing campaigns are always characterized by humour and creativity that appeal to people on a personal level.
In doing so, they promote a sense of connection and community. From the “Help Dad” campaign aimed at teenagers to initiatives such as “Stop Plant-Based Censorship ”, Oatly's marketing messages are full of authenticity and always reflect the company's commitment to sustainability.
And they always remain one thing: fearless.
👋 B2B for Oatly - Hey Barista!
Oatly doesn't just want to be seen by consumers as a better alternative to milk. They know that they have other important multipliers: Baristas.
Titled “Hey Barista!”, Oatly launched a print magazine to put the spotlight on baristas and their creative work with Oatly products. The aim: to win over baristas as ambassadors for the brand and to connect the coffee community more closely.
To increase brand awareness and reach, part of Oatly's marketing strategy was to focus on partnerships with specialty cafés. By working with renowned cafés and coffee chains, Oatly positioned itself as the first choice for plant-based milk alternatives in the specialty coffee scene.
In 2023, the magazine was expanded into the “Hey Barista” app. The app helps users discover specialty cafés in different cities around the world - all curated by experienced baristas and coffee experts. Users can filter cafés, find events and experience unique stories from the world of coffee, such as meeting a barista from Hamburg who shares his passion for bodybuilding. With this community approach, Oatly connects the local café scene with a global target group and establishes itself as a relevant lifestyle brand in the barista community.
The strategic collaboration with top baristas and the subsequent launch of its own barista blend product positioned Oatly as the best alternative to dairy products in the booming specialty coffee scene.
A clever B2B move that has a positive impact on the overall brand image.
5️⃣ 5 things we can learn from Oatly for our marketing strategy
Oatly has managed to build a love brand with a brand myth.
Something many marketing managers and CEOs dream of.
And while success can never be duplicated, here are my top 5 learnings from this brand case study.
1️⃣ Strategy first
CEO Toni Petersson puts it in a nutshell when he says in the interview:
You can have the most beautiful product in the world but it is worthless if you don’t have the strategy and execution. With Oatly, what I kept asking myself was, ‘How do we make this business relevant to people?’ That was what we wanted to answer with the marketing campaign.
First comes a strong marketing strategy.
A razor-sharp diagnosis of the status quo, followed by an ambitious vision and clear strategic goals.
Then the execution.
2️⃣ Courage pays off
In a world where most brands play it safe, Oatly's Tone of Voice is distinctive and instantly recognizable - be it on packaging, on social media or even in updates to investors.
‘Oatly is one of the world’s most distinctive brands, which is shocking considering it’s an oat milk’
Kevin Lynch, Creative Director, Oatly
The brand's unconventional campaigns show its willingness to take risks to get its message across.
3️⃣ The bigger picture
Oatly doesn't just sell oat milk.
The brand stands for a world view.
For a lifestyle.
And they invite us all to join in and be part of a greater whole.
Oatly's marketing strategy goes beyond simply advertising its own products. It aims to position the brand as young, cool and rebellious, thereby appealing to a target group that puts sustainability at the center of everything it does.
Sustainability can also be communicated emotionally and inspire.
4️⃣ Authenticity
Oatly shows us that authenticity in marketing means taking a bold and blunt stance - even when it gets uncomfortable. Being authentic means not hiding your brand behind a glossy image, but communicating openly who you are, what you do and why.
Oatly does just that.
With a clear stance on environmental issues and a humorous, self-deprecating tone, the brand creates a deep connection with its audience.
Simon Sinek would say that Oatly simply lives its “WHY” properly.
It's not just a brand or a logo.
Everything about the company feels human.
5️⃣ Every brand touchpoint can be used
Oatly invests a lot of time in creating and distributing content. The brand knows the power of engaging and informative content to connect with its target audience.
But the real feat is that this content strategy is used in every medium: From social media to giant billboards to packaging.
Communication theorist Paul Watzlawick described it many years ago:
You can't not communicate.
And we should also consider whether and how we want to design all our brand touchpoints:
What background do customers see in our Zoom calls?
What clothes do we wear to appointments?
What words do we use in Linkedin postings?
Strong brands shape every touchpoint, no matter how seemingly small.
Thanks for reading along!