Put the CEO in the ad. Repeat the message over and over (and over). Doesn’t work? Watch and learn…

“Oatly is like milk. But for humans. No cow.” Yep, we get it…

There’s a little behind-the-scenes clue to Forsman & Bodenfors’ new campaign for Oatly. It’s up on F&B’s website: “Oatly is a Swedish manufacturer of oat based foods and drinks. A tiny company with huge ambitions. They have a lot to say and want to be in the middle of the discussion concerning sustainability and health. The only problem is that their media budget is, to put it mildly, limited…”

F&B is, in face, explaining its rather beautiful packaging for the brand. “Which is why we decided to treat the packaging as Oatly’s main media channel, as an advertising space in itself.”

Packaging credits:

Copywriters: Martin Ringqvist, John Schoolcraft (Oatly)

Art directon/illustration: Lars Elfman. Designer: Christoffer Persson

Production Company: F&B Factory

But that message went up in September. It’s the end of October, and Oatly also has a YouTube campaign. Made – seemingly or patently (you decide) – on a “limited” budget. And yet, in true F&B style, it’s more impactful than if millions of dollars had been strewn about to make it.

F&B put the CEO of Oatly, Toni Petersson, in the ad. In fact, put only the CEO of Oatly in the ad. In his oat field. With a synthesizer. Got him to write his script. He wrote a song. It’s dreadful. His singing is worse. It works its little cotton socks off. It’s living breathing cringe-worthy proof of the fact that a single-minded idea makes ad magic. Wow No Cow is single-minded idea. “Oatly is like milk. But for humans. No cow,” sells itself to its target market. They’re terrified of dairy. They don’t really know why. They just want to know that Oatly milk isn’t dairy.

Petersson stated “Against my better judgment, I agreed to be featured in a series of films. At first, I was really concerned that the ideas were bad, that I was bad and that all the commercials I had ever seen featuring CEOs were really terrible. For me, it made more sense to spend time and money on developing a strong idea that would explain to viewers how everyone at Oatly goes to work everyday to improve people’s lives and the health of the planet. For some reason my creative director and agency thought I should sing this instead. I guess time will tell if I was right or if they were.”

Wow No Cow is episode six of what has become known as Toni TV. Episode 9 has just been released. It’s titled Nonchalent and it’s about selling “in a non-selling way.” Watch the whole series here (better if you speak Swedish)

The Oatly products are being sold in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, UK, Germany, Holland, France, Spain and Italy.