Last Updated on May 9, 2026
Brand
Out-of-Home
The move
Oatly had been making oat milk in Sweden since the 1990s. For most of that time, nobody cared. It was a niche product for people with dairy intolerances, sitting quietly on the bottom shelf.
Then they hired Toni Petersson as CEO and John Schoolcraft as creative director, renamed the in-house creative team “The Department of Mind Control,” and started picking fights.
The first fight was with the Swedish dairy industry. Oatly ran campaigns with slogans like “It’s like milk, but made for humans” and “Wow, no cow!” The dairy lobby, LRF Mjolk, sued them. Oatly lost the case in 2015 and was ordered to stop implying that cow’s milk wasn’t fit for human consumption.
Most brands would have gone quiet. Oatly published the full text of the lawsuit on their website and let people read every word of the dairy industry trying to silence a small oat milk company. Sales soared. The dairy lobby had given Oatly something no advertising budget could buy: a villain to position themselves against.
They brought the same approach to the UK, spending £700,000 on a billboard campaign across London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow. Bold, self-aware, often deliberately odd. One billboard just said “This tastes like sh*t!” with a small note underneath reading “(said no one after trying it).” Another listed the full ingredient list in massive type, turning product transparency into visual marketing.
Revenue tells the story. Oatly went from $204 million in 2019 to $421 million in 2020. They didn’t get there by being likeable. They got there by being impossible to ignore.
Why it worked
Oatly understood something most brands are too scared to act on: trying to please everyone means you’ll be memorable to no one.
Their branding is deliberately polarising. The hand-drawn typography, the rambling copy on the side of every carton, the conversational tone that sometimes reads like someone thinking out loud. It repels people who want their brands to be polished and professional. It attracts people who are tired of polished and professional.
The lawsuit was the turning point. When a massive industry body tries to shut you down, you get to play David against Goliath. Oatly didn’t just survive the lawsuit, they weaponised it. Publishing the full legal text was brilliant positioning. It said: “We’re so confident in our product that we want you to read every word of what the dairy industry thinks about us.”
The Department of Mind Control model matters, too. The creative team sits in every meeting across the company. They’re not briefed after decisions are made. They’re in the room when decisions happen. That means the brand voice is baked into the business, not bolted on afterwards. It’s the reason Oatly sounds the same on a billboard, on the side of a carton, on social media, and in their annual report.
Their philosophy is “consistently inconsistent.” They never repeat the same format twice. Every campaign looks different, sounds different, and takes a different angle. But it always feels like Oatly. That’s the difference between a brand with a strong identity and a brand that just follows a template.
The principle
If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll stand out to no one. The brands that grow fastest are the ones willing to be disliked by some people in order to be loved by the right people.
And controversy isn’t a crisis if you’re prepared for it. It’s free distribution. The people who hate your marketing will share it just as widely as the people who love it.
Steal this
You don’t need to pick a fight with a trade body. But you do need to stop trying to sound like everyone else in your industry.
Define who your brand is not for. Write it down. If you’re a premium dog food brand, you’re not for people who buy whatever’s cheapest. If you’re a specialist accountant, you’re not for businesses that just want the cheapest compliance filing. Knowing who you’re willing to lose helps you speak more clearly to the people you want to keep.
Find the industry norm everyone follows but nobody questions. Oatly questioned whether milk marketing needed to be wholesome and pastoral. What’s the equivalent in your sector? The stock photo handshakes? The identical blue logos? The jargon-filled About page? Break one convention deliberately, and explain why you broke it.
Be transparent about something your competitors hide. Oatly prints their full ingredient list on billboards. What could you be open about? Your pricing structure. Your profit margins. Your supply chain. Transparency creates trust and differentiates you from competitors who rely on vagueness.
Prepare for the pushback. If your marketing is bold enough to get noticed, some people won’t like it. That’s the point. Have a plan for how you’ll respond: calmly, with humour, and without backtracking. Oatly didn’t apologise for upsetting the dairy industry. They published the complaint. Confidence under criticism is the brand itself.
See the branding in action
Oatly’s campaigns, packaging, and the tone that divides opinion on purpose.
Visit Oatly UK →
Sources & further reading
- Why Oatly ensures its marketing strategy is ‘consistently inconsistent’ · Marketing Week
- Oatly brings controversial ad campaign to the UK · The Drum
- The Oatly Department of Mind Control · Contagious
- Oatly Marketing Strategy: Cheeky Tone, Bold Packaging · Latterly
The Whito verdict
Oatly turned oat milk from a niche product into a cultural statement by doing what most brands are terrified of: being deliberately divisive. They didn’t try to win everyone over. They made a specific group of people feel like Oatly was their brand, and let everyone else argue about it.
The lawsuit stunt is the most important lesson here. When someone attacks your brand, you have two options: retreat or reframe. Oatly chose to reframe. They turned a legal defeat into the best marketing campaign they ever ran. That takes nerve, but it also takes a brand that actually believes in what it’s saying.
For UK small businesses, the takeaway isn’t “start a fight.” It’s “stop being afraid of having an opinion.” The blandest brands are the ones nobody remembers.
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