Oatly has been known for its campaigns. The oat milk company puts its best copy first in a new campaign around New Zealand.

The “it’s like milk, but made for humans” campaign sets out to explain that oat milk has been designed for human consumption. Looking back on decades of nutritional characteristics, Oatly decided to turn oats into milk as an alternative to cow’s milk. 

Oatly’s campaign has been around for a while now. Seven years, in fact. It first launched in Sweden in 2015, but the brand was sued by the dairy industry. The reasoning? It disparaged cow’s milk unfairly as being unhealthy.

Unfazed, Oatly kept the campaign going. In 2021 the campaign kicked off in the US. The brand ran a rather unconventional Wow No Cow song that was sung by CEO Toni Patterson during the Super Bowl. It led to people wearing “I totally hated that Oatly commercial” t-shirt. 

New Zealand campaign

And now, the next location? New Zealand. The launch of the campaign is supported by digital media buy campaigns across socials. The OOH campaigns will be billboards and street posters around Auckland and Wellington. 

Oatly has also partnered with a local radio station. A producer from the station is going to detox from dairy for a fortnight. Each day they’ll provide updates for how their “detox” is going. If New Zealand takes a page out of Sweden’s book and the ‘It’s like milk, but made for  humans’ phrase is banned, 95bFM listeners will be asked to call in with ideas on new ways  to say it for the chance to win 20 free Oatly coffees at Remedy cafe. If the phrase doesn’t  get banned, Oatly will give away 20 free coffees at Remedy every day for 10 days anyway.  

This isn’t Oatly’s first foray into giving away free coffees with its milk. The company definitely puts its money where its mouth is.

The campaign is live now until 3 July, 2022.