marketing teardown: 🥛 oatly

hey, marketer! 

if you’ve been to a coffee shop in the past 10 years, you’ve seen a new milk alternative show up on the menu: oat.

then, it started taking over the grocery store. 

but how did oatly make a way for a new product category amidst such alt-milk saturation? (gross image)

brand in the hot seat: 🥛 oatly

today's treasure trove

• who is oatly?

• oatly’s branding

• oatly’s distribution channel as marketing

• oatly’s ads

• wrap up

who is oatly?

quick stats:

• youtube – 17.9k followers, 201 videos

• instagram – 375k followers

• facebook – 230k followers (US)

• x/twitter – 22.7k followers

• tiktok – 701.4k followers

• monthly website traffic – 187.3k

I used to work in the coffee industry (I owned a coffee shop in austin, tx), and I remember when oatly came on the scene.

everything was soy, almond, coconut milk, whatever. but then – boom. a new star was born.

and guess what? they were crushing it.

for a brand that was started in the 1990s, oatly is super trendy and hip. they know how to be weird and put their brand stances forward.

those stances being: 

• environmentally friendly

• plant-based lifestyles

• “anti-dairy”

oatly’s branding

oatly was a small player until recently, giving them the opportunity (and need) to take mega risks to stand out. in its early days, it had a safe brand, but they decided to change that narrative.

one of those risks is their branding – make it authentic, chatty, and weird. an amazing embodiment of “fresh” juxtapositioned against an old industry.

when oatly does something, they start by asking “how can we do this differently than what everyone expects?” – in ad placement, packaging, messaging, and more.

take a look at their website (try scrolling), and you’ll instantly know what I mean.

and, of course, who can forget slogans like “wow! no cow!” and “it’s like milk, but made for humans.”

when writing brand messaging, I try to consider “who’s the villain in this scenario?”

naming a villain is a brilliant way to cement a brand’ position. most brands do this by calling out the industry’s biggest players, but oatly didn’t say “we’re the best alt-milk out there” – no, they took a stance against the entire dairy industry. very bold move.

doubling down on being “anti-dairy,” oatly folds environmentally-friendly practices and a plant-based lifestyle into their values and their marketing.content strategy

oatly’s distribution channel as marketing

influencer marketing typically hinges on a few big “influencers” – but what about the general “industry experts?”

oatly identified baristas as milk experts.

baristas work with milk all day – just as much, if not more, than coffee. 

so, oatly tailored its brand to speak to baristas, who are often young and hip. *cue hipster barista meme

focusing on influencing the influencers – making a big splash (*ahem) in the coffee industry. they inundated coffee shops all over the place and became the gold standard for any barista’s favorite alt-milk.

oatly’s ads

who can forget that ad? it was one of the few that filled conversations on the post-super bowl monday. 

it boggled the mind – marketers were asking themselves “was this ad good?”

objectively, it is not. but it is entertaining and bizarre and got people’s attention – so, it was successful.

of course, some people couldn't stand it, but a company with values including living a plant-based lifestyle is used to ruffling feathers.

and their other ads are based on this basic formula: a picture of oatly, their brand colors, and frame-breaking copy.

no slow-motion vistas of oat fields, no cute puppies, not even features and benefits. their approach is more conversation than conversion.

wrap up

oatly has quickly created a new category and become the face of it. 

their approach to branding has been picked up by direct competitors making oat milk, but will it spill out into almond milk, soy, maybe even dairy itself?

we’ll see.

I hope you learned something new and enjoyed this deep dive on oatly. (and read the other deep dives here)

oh! btw, thank you if you upvoted marketer gems on uneed.best – we made it to #1 product of the day!

so, I’m doing another launch, this time on ctrlalt.cc – check it out here

✌️,

tom from marketer gems