The Copy Is on the Carton

Oatly treated its packaging as the advertising, printed the argument on the side of the box, and when a dairy lobby took it to court, printed the court case too.

Oat drink is a commodity. It is oats and water, it is not difficult to make, and by the time Oatly became famous there were competitors on the same shelf at the same price doing roughly the same thing.

What Oatly did differently was decide that the packaging was not packaging. It was the only advertising space they were guaranteed to occupy, in front of exactly the right person, at the exact moment of decision, for free.