Latest / Brand Storytelling with Fexingo: Narrative, Mission, and Stories That Sell / How Oatly Built a Billion-Dollar Brand on Quirky Storytelling
Transcript
- Lucas: In 2014, Oatly was a 20-year-old Swedish oat milk company with about 35 million dollars in revenue and essentially zero brand recognition outside Scandinavia. Ten years later, it's a publicly traded company valued at over a billion dollars, and its voice is one of the most imitated in all of food marketing. Luna: It's not like they invented oat milk, right? There were plenty of other plant milks on the shelf. Lucas: Exactly. What Oatly did was invent a brand personality. And that personality became the real product. The milk itself is fine, but the story around it — that's what made people switch. Luna: So what made their voice so different? I remember seeing those cartons with tiny text all over them. It felt like reading a friend's diary. Lucas: Right. The packaging was covered in quirky, self-deprecating copy. Things like 'This is the carton that talks back' or 'It's like milk but made for humans.' That last one became their unofficial tagline. And it was — you know, mildly provocative. It positioned dairy as something not for humans, which is a bold claim. Luna: But provocative in a funny way. Not preachy. Lucas: That's key. They avoided the typical sustainability lecture. Instead, they used humor and self-awareness. Their ads often started with someone saying 'This is an ad for oat milk' and then they'd play with the format. One of their most famous spots, the 'Help the Planet' campaign, featured their CEO standing in a field singing a bizarre jingle about saving the earth. It was intentionally awkward. Luna: And that ad got banned by the UK advertising regulator for misleading claims, right? Lucas: Yes, it was banned for implying that drinking oat milk significantly reduces your carbon footprint compared to dairy, which isn't strictly proven. But here's the irony: the ban only made it more famous. The news cycle drove millions of views to the parody. Oatly couldn't have bought that kind of attention. Luna: So controversy became a storytelling tool. But that feels risky for a small brand. Lucas: It does, but Oatly had a clear narrative arc. They positioned themselves as the underdog taking on Big Dairy. Every bold move reinforced that story. And they backed it with real product — oat milk that actually foamed for lattes, which solved a practical problem for coffee shops. Luna: I remember Starbucks started carrying it in 2020. That was a huge moment. Lucas: Huge. And it wasn't just distribution. Oatly's brand voice meant that when Starbucks announced the partnership, the media wrote about the personality of the milk, not just the menu item. That's the power of narrative — it makes the business news itself part of the story. Luna: Before the Starbucks deal, what was their tipping point? I know they went IPO in 2021. Lucas: Their inflection point was a production facility in the U.S. that came online in 2020, but narratively, it was their 2014 brand overhaul. Back in Sweden, they hired a creative agency called Forsman & Bodenfors, who basically rewrote the rulebook. They replaced the clinical, health-focused packaging with typography-heavy, conversational cartons. They even put the word 'Oatly' in a new font. Luna: That overhaul must have been expensive for a company with 35 million in revenue. Lucas: It was a bet. They spent a lot of their early profits on that rebrand. But it paid off because the voice was so distinctive that it cut through the noise in a crowded dairy aisle. And they didn't just apply it to packaging — they used it in every touchpoint: website, social media, even investor letters. Luna: So the brand narrative wasn't an afterthought. It was the strategy. Lucas: Exactly. Toni Petersson, the CEO, said in interviews that they thought of themselves as a media company that happens to sell oat milk. That's a powerful framing. It means every piece of copy, every tweet, every ad is another episode in a continuing story. Luna: And that consistency is hard to maintain as you scale. Did they manage it? Lucas: For the most part, yes. Even after going public, their packaging still has those long, bemused paragraphs about how they're 'trying to make the world a little less stupid.' But there are cracks — some international markets have bland, translation-heavy versions that lose the voice. The challenge now is keeping the soul while feeding the machine. Luna: I wonder if that's where the story gets complicated. You grow from a rebellious startup to a global brand, and suddenly you are the establishment. Lucas: It's a classic tension in brand storytelling. The same voice that made you beloved can start to feel performative. But Oatly's advantage is that their narrative is rooted in product truth — they really do use less water and land than dairy. As long as they keep that core, the story holds. Luna: So what's next for them? They're already in almost every Starbucks. Lucas: They're pushing into new categories like ice cream and yogurt. And they're trying to tell stories in other cultures. In China, for example, they partnered with local tea shops to create oat milk bubble tea. That's a smart narrative move — adapting the voice to local context. Luna: I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier — the idea of being a media company. That's actually a thread we see in a lot of the brands we cover on this show. Lucas: Yeah, and it's not a coincidence. When you treat your brand as a publisher, you prioritize story over transaction. That's exactly the kind of thinking that keeps listeners coming back to shows like this — we dig into the mechanics of how brands build those narratives. And I'll be honest, episodes like this one take a lot of research and writing to get right. If you've gotten something out of these conversations, a couple of dollars a month at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely makes a difference in keeping this ad-free and focused on the substance. Luna: It's a small thing, but it adds up. And it lets us keep chasing stories like Oatly without worrying about sponsor constraints. Lucas: Exactly. So — back to Oatly. One lesson I keep coming back to is that you can't fake a brand voice. It has to be rooted in something real about the company. Oatly's irreverence works because they actually believe they're making the world better. If you try to copy the tone without the conviction, it sounds hollow. Luna: Are there brands that have tried and failed? Lucas: Plenty. Remember when major dairy companies tried to launch 'humorous' plant-based lines? They fell flat because the audience knew it was a defensive move. Authenticity is the only currency in brand storytelling. Luna: So what's the one concrete takeaway for anyone building a brand narrative? Lucas: Start with your product's genuine point of difference — not the one you wish you had. Oatly's difference wasn't that oat milk is healthier; it's that their product works in coffee and their story felt like a conversation. Find that real edge, then build a voice around it. The rest is just consistency and courage. Luna: And maybe a little awkward singing. Lucas: That helps too.