Oatly

Dublin is Oatly’s city, and we’re just living in it

Challenge

Oatly invented oat milk in the 1990s, but only arrived in Ireland in 2016, rapidly winning market share with absolutely no advertising.

By 2023, competition among plant milks had intensified and Oatly’s share was plateauing and research by Oatly found one-third of Irish shoppers are buying dairy and meat alternatives more often. Now was the time to finally launch Oatly in Ireland.

Insight

As a quirky, disruptive brand, Oatly challenges the whole dairy industry, and doesn’t shirk from creating controversy, entertainment or confusion. It’s their M.O.

To launch the brand in Ireland and create fame, this campaign set out to win over some one million hipsters, hippies and norms aspiring to live lives of health and sustainability to delicious Oatly.

Strategy

The campaign set out to incite a plant based revolution by creating ‘North Korea levels of propaganda’, involving a complete Dublin take-over, targeting everywhere the audience lived, delivering such density and frequency that it felt as if Oatly was brainwashing our audience everywhere they went.

Campaign

This approach meant ripping up the traditional media rule book. It didn’t use fancy ‘innovation’ - ever so slightly Situationist, medium was the message. Outdoor media as the lead broadcast channel, followed by social media, YouTube content, digital audio, online video (plus one iconic TV spot), magazine print, and widespread sampling through Dublin’s top independent coffee shops.

Results

All of which, together, meant Oatly’s first ever Irish campaign delivered a massive 70% uplift in sales in Jan/Feb 2023 versus the previous year.

On top of that:

• 40% of all consumers said they would buy Oatly in the future

• 61% of Oatly buyers would continue buying the brand.

• 15,000 free Oatly coffees were redeemed across 30 participating independent cafes.

Above all, the campaign impacted culture, with massive amounts of earned media and social engagement. One Tweet said it all: “Dublin is Oatly’s city, and we’re just living in it”.

We made Ireland’s biggest billboard even bigger with the first ‘384-sheet’, combining Ranelagh’s enormous billboard with all three sides of the revolving billboard beside it. Looking at another ad? Not anymore!

Heuston Station takeover - bought every advertising space for that propaganda feel – people called it ‘Oatly Station’!

Oatly’s CEO singing ‘Wow No Cow on the telly and in digital audio.

The Luas was wrapped inside and out – people called it the ‘Oatly Luas’.

Bus T-Sides criss-crossing the city every every few minutes for that propaganda takeover feel.