Episode 81 - Oatly Ad Review - The Reaction!
After asking us to review the New Norm & Al Show ad miniseries on Advertisers Watching Ads on Episode 78 of the show, Oatly Creative Director Michael Lee got in touch to discuss the creative process behind bringing the puppets to our screens, as well as how it felt to watch other brands review your work.
In this AWA Special, we talk about how the phrase “the new normal” changed its meaning for Michael when he decided to add an “&” in the middle of “normal” and address a different topic than the one usually associated with the expression. Given that so many countries are embracing plant-based living as not an alternative, but the mainstream, why couldn’t that be the “new normal”?
Oatly’s discourse has changed from being 100% disruptive to opening up to those just “dipping their toes” into plant-based nutrition. Norm & Al are here to show us that it’s not all black and white and it’s okay to not go completely vegan from day 1.
At the same time, Michael was surprised to see the positive reactions to his work - perhaps because of the long history of disruptive marketing that usually has people attacking Oatly rather than welcoming their message?
Watch the full episode to see what Michael had to say about how the campaign was created, what it means for the brand, and what’s next for Oatly and plant-based living.
Transcript
The following transcript is automatically generated so may not be 100% accurate, but will give you a good idea of what was discussed.
Tom Ollerton 0:06
Hello and welcome to a special edition of Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and normally I do a weekly show where I interview brands about other brands' ads, just a bit of fun. And then I got a strange email from Oatly and they... Michael Lee said, "Could you review the most recent Oatly ad on Advertisers Watching Ads?" I was like, "Of course! Of course, brilliant." So earlier today, we released the three industry experts reviewing the ad. And now I'm going to interview Michael and this kind of meta way about his view of their view about his ad. So Michael Lee, can you tell the audience a bit about who you are and what you do?
Michael Lee 0:56
Sure. Yeah, my name is Michael and I'm a creative director at Oatly. I've been, I've been there or here for about what is it? Four years now? And nowadays I work mostly with the UK and the DACH region, Germany, Austria, Switzerland.
Tom Ollerton 1:19
So if you haven't seen the ad, here is some of that content.
So, Michael, why did you want this creative to be reviewed on Advertisers Watching Ads?
Michael Lee 2:01
I think, you know, when we, when we spoke the first time, I just thought that we had a, we had a nice conversation about all things Oatly, and I just kind of liked the rapport that we had. And we've been working with the production on this campaign for about eight months. So we've done five episodes and I've seen each one probably about 10,000 times apiece. So I've just gone completely numb to it. So, you know, I just thought, I've seen that you've done this advertising watching advertising, and I thought, "Well... Why not put, put these spots on there and see what people have to say about it?"
Tom Ollerton 2:46
So what I'm, what I'm really keen to know is how did you come up with this idea? It might be good to just explain a bit about the creative process for people that don't know it.
Michael Lee 2:56
Yeah. Well, we don't really have any process for, for anything and... And a lot of people often ask us about strategy. We don't really have much, much of a strategic process other than just whatever kind of makes sense at the time, if you can call that strategy. But I mean, where the idea came out of was, you know, everyone's been talking about this new normal and we've actually done some, some ads in some markets where we talk about, oh, we being, being the new normal. And I just felt that was, you know, it sounded kind of Darth Vader-ish, especially now with the pandemic, the new normal has taken on kind of a negative coinage to it. It's also about change and nobody likes change. So then one day, we just put a little ampersand in between 'norm' and 'al' and then it became The New Norm&Al now and then that just became The New Norm&Al Show. And I'm not sure how we got to puppets. But that's kind of, that's kind of everywhere it ended. I think it was really about trying to find a super digestible and easy way for people to, to for people to meet these messages, and we thought, "Well, why not puppets? Who doesn't like puppets?"
Tom Ollerton 4:30
So before we get into the puppets? Why did you put an ampersand? Like what was that was? It's not like ten of you sat around the room or was it like this all on Zoom? Why would someone put an ampersand there and why did someone notice it?
Michael Lee 4:43
It's just one of those random things. I was just staring at the headline on my screen, actually. And then I thought, "Oh, why don't we just put an ampersand over there?" I mean, I don't know. I don't know why. It just...
Tom Ollerton 5:02
When you talk to me about... When you mention that, and this is going to sound like the most ridiculous thing in the world, but I've only watched the first episode of the Get Back, Beatles thing, but there's that. There's that amazing bit where they're, they're practicing a song which ends up being in the sort of the bridge of Don't Let Me Down? And they just played it over and over again, and they're playing for an hour and they're queuing with themselves. And it's so funny because as a viewer, you're going, "Don't let me down." But like, they haven't made that connection yet. And then there's that... They're going, "Are we doing this for an hour, man?" And then right at the end of that scene, they finish and John goes, "Don't let me down." You know? And it clocked for him. That moment, that was his like, ampersand moment. I'm not comparing this ad to Don't Let Me Down or The Beatles. Don't get me wrong. But it was, it sounded that kind of moment where you do the weird thing and you're like, it stops you in your tracks, and like, "Oh, maybe the weird thing is the right thing."
Michael Lee 5:56
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was... It was really like we were just going to go out with headlines just saying at 'The New Normal' and with an Oatly pat. But again, was just... It just felt a little bit Darth Vader to me.
Tom Ollerton 6:15
Why is it Darth Vader? You said that before, and I kind of miss what you mean by that.
Michael Lee 6:19
Promoting like the new normal. It's just it's it's change and it's like... And nobody likes change and it feels difficult and a little bit scary and something that you just don't want to do. So I think they're just looking for ways to break that in some way. And that little ampersand just kind of did the trick, I guess.
Tom Ollerton 6:45
So let's call it different directions. I want to take this. Wasn't there any sort of anxiety around the new normal being a kind of sort of COVID related thing like, you know, when I see 'The New Normal' that was my first reaction. Like, "Oh, right, what like, video conferencing? Like working from home?" Like, it took me a while cognitively to get, "Oh, you're right, you mean milk. Obviously you think... It was obvious, but it wasn't the easy obvious to me. That's my one of my criticisms. I was like, "Why are they jumping on that?" But but you've borrowed someone else's or you've borrowed popular culture's phrase, which is 'The New Normal' and go, "No, no, we're going to have this for milk. I'm we're going to do a proper job." So was there any, any doubt about it being the right way to go? Clearly not, but curious to know if that was discussed.
Michael Lee 7:27
No, not really, I think. I think what we, what we kind of liked about the term was that it was so loaded... Everybody had this... We would have kind of an immediate reaction to that term, but then putting it in the context of Oatly and then making the connection to plant-based versus milk. There was just a nice little, little friction there that we felt was, was sticky.
Tom Ollerton 7:55
And I get the idea that and I'm not surprised to hear you say, said again that you're refusing strategy and assume there's no research, but how did you get to 'The New Normal' in the first place? How did you? Yes, it's very Darth Vader-y and loaded. I get that. How did you? Was one of like ten different positions you came up with or like, how did you arrive there?
Michael Lee 8:18
Well, I mean, when you, when you look at it from, in terms of the of the plant-based movement, you can say that plant-based is becoming the new normal to varying degrees in different countries. So that's always been a mission for us. But plant-based would be, would be normal, but it's kind of like, you know, 15, 20 years ago when people talked about digital advertising, that was kind of like the new thing. It was like, there's advertising in the digital. And now it's just advertising. So it's... In the same way, it shouldn't be the, you know, a plant-based shouldn't be the alternative. It just should be the normal. So in that sense, we're working towards trying to get society to accept plant-based as the new normal.
Tom Ollerton 9:18
So very keen to know what was left on the cutting room floor. What was that idea? Like, someone was like, "Hey, The Norm&Al Show, puppets?" It's like, what? What was? What didn't make it? What was the idea that was like, "No, no, that's too weird or unusual."
Michael Lee 9:37
I don't, I don't remember, actually. But I do remember sending, just sending a note and Teams to the people that I'm working with and just prefacing it with... You want to hear something weird? And then I, and then I wrote The New Norm&Al Show. And then this guy, Andy, a copywriter who I, who I worked with. He is brilliant. And that was, that was kind of it. And that's and that's how we started the poetry.
Tom Ollerton 10:08
So that sounds like me. You came up with the idea based on the ampersand. Then you sent it to your team and then they signed off your work.
Michael Lee 10:17
Basically.
Tom Ollerton 10:19
So, so you got to The New Norm&Al Show and then you don't remember... What happened then? Like what was? What was the creative process? What was it? Was it like, did you have like a brainstorm on Teams? Like, what could this show be? Is it, you don't know where the puppets came from. But how did that? How did that sort of evolve? Was that like all done in half an hour or was this over weeks?
Michael Lee 10:40
A little bit of both. I mean. I think we pretty quickly sketched out just some, some storylines that we wanted the puppet show to take. And pretty early on, we wanted to do a mini series to, to create several episodes. Initially, I wanted, I wanted to do twelve episodes, but that would have cost a fortune. So we carried it down to five. But I think, you know, the idea just came about pretty quickly. It was just essentially. Trying to help society navigate this new plant-based world with these two Oatly cartons that would, that would kind of help you along, that would help you on the way. The two characters was this guy Norm. And there's Al, and Norm is, it's kind of like the wise one or wiser, already committed to plant-based and Al, we wrote him to kind of represent all of us, represent in society in, in dealing with like all the trials and tribulations of going plant-based. So based on that as the core idea, we just we just developed, actually developed 30 or 40 scripts. I think Andy wrote about 40 or 50 scripts that we just culled down to these five.
Tom Ollerton 12:17
And so, another criticism I have of the idea is that I might have missed this and I apologize. But that doesn't seem to be like a, like a narrative arc for the whole thing. Now there's this tension. There's tension. It's interesting. Described as the audience in that role. But then, I was asking the guys, like, what is the continuation? What is the unresolved tension here? Where is the... Are these guys going to go from A to B? But whereas across the episodes, I didn't see that, but that's just my view. But does that matter or is that coming later or are we going to? Are you going to go to the CEO and get some more money and do your twelve shows? Is this going to turn into a story? Is this going to be a Nicole and Papa or a Maxwell House? Help me understand why there isn't an obvious story?
Michael Lee 13:09
Well, that was, that was kind of intentional, actually, because I think one of the... What one of the things that we're, we're very, very cognizant of is that we, we operate in an industry that can be super, super preachy about stuff telling you, telling you what to do or you needed to do this to save the planet. You know, blah blah blah. Let everyone think about the kids. And I think in a lot of the work that we do, we try to kind of shy away from that and let people come to their own conclusions about what to do and when it comes to all this plant-based eating and should I go vegan? And should I be flexitarian? Not flexitarian? Are views are nothing... Nothing is, is black and white. And so it was quite intentional with, with the show that we wanted to make it so, you know, people watching it would maybe have even more questions than when they started. So that was, that was a bit intentional to try to just kind of have people kind of think about these things and make up their own minds about what to do next.
Tom Ollerton 14:31
It's one of the things that I really liked about it was, I can't remember which episode, but it's basically saying, no, it's alright to think about milk sometimes or even have milk. Sometimes it's not about being perfect, whereas I think back to previous Oatly campaigns, not as intimate with, almost as, you know, obviously. But it's like the idea of like, you know, milk for humans. You know, that's a, that's a big like F.U. to like that, you know, the dairy industry, right? That's not make your own mind up. That's like, you know, you, you drink in cow's milk, and that's weird. So what I liked about this was it was like, "Well, you know, you can move in this direction or think you can dip your toe in the water." One of our guests suggested, but it seems like you've moved away from converting their, you know, the planet friendly, if you like, to now converting the mainstream. But would you say that's fair?
Michael Lee 15:22
Absolutely. I mean, I think we constructed this campaign to go after the mainstream. I mean, the plant-based movement has gained ground a considerable ground within the past five, ten years, but it's still not even close to to mainstream. So, you know, three or four years ago when we were in Shoreditch telling people to ditch milk or saying, and saying it's like, "Milk made for humans." I think that really resonated with the crowd that was just kind of on the cusp of things. But now with this campaign, we're trying to reach, we're trying to reach everybody. And so that's why, that's why we went with puppets, because who doesn't like puppets? And also, it's like you can be preaching to people who are not even close to, to try anything, anything plant-based. And there was also another aspect of it is like, you know, you have... You have, you have a coach like on a basketball team. I used to play basketball. And, you know, some... Some players respond differently to different tactics. You know, some, some respond to being provoked. Some responded more of a soft touch. I don't know. How's that for a strategic work around to your question?
Tom Ollerton 16:47
So I'd really like to know what you thought of the Advertisers Watching Ads Episodes.
Jerry Daykin 16:52
When I watch that, you know, three, four minutes go by I laugh, I smile, like I think it's a great day communications, it tells a tough and slightly boring although it's we shouldn't be bored about saving the world. But you know, we can be still in a really rich way. And I you know, I don't mind the puppets going on about the existential crisis, I quite enjoyed it.
Julia Linehan 17:10
I just really liked it. I mean, it's not only is it completely on point for Veganuary, the flexitarian whole concept of that the whole series is based on it's so timely with people giving it a go of being a vegan for January, giving it and then cook very quickly starting to go actually, it's not me, that's one of the other episodes that really resonated with me, but just overall concepts brilliant is from the minds of people this, I'd love to meet them, but I just thought I'd put massive smile on my face and what's not to love about that.
Emma Roffey 17:42
And I love what they're saying around in some other episodes. It's not all or nothing, you know, you can break the rules sometimes. And that's okay, playing on the words you know, Norm&Al and all that fantastic. I just didn't like the puppet bits at the end and not real not really real. Well never realized that.
Tom Ollerton 18:01
First of all, what was it like watching your ad being reviewed by your peers?
Michael Lee 18:09
I don't know. It was it was fine. I think.
Tom Ollerton 18:12
It was fine? That's fine, as in fine, not great. Or fine as in it was okay.
Michael Lee 18:20
No, it's you know, it's, it's always interesting to hear what people or people have to say. I think, I think what surprised me was was how positive they were because we're just not really used to that. We're just used to have been kind of dealing with a wave of negativity and then kind of doing some judo to turn that to our advantage in some way. But I think that, for the most part, I thought that they were quite positive about about the campaign and...
Tom Ollerton 18:59
Incredibly positive. So I had to take it on myself to kind of fight the other quarter. So I'm sure, I'm sure you notice, but are you disappointed? Did you want to ruffle feathers more with this? Did you want to be doing the judo? If you build that muscle memory now and now, it's not getting to be used this time?
Michael Lee 19:17
It's kind of a new thing for us, actually. You know, people...
Tom Ollerton 19:21
Mainstream. The new normal for you guys is the center of the middle.
Michael Lee 19:28
But I don't know. I mean, we always talk about being consistently inconsistent. And I was reading an article that someone had written about, about us, and he was, he was talking about the difference between branding and storytelling, whatever, whatever that means. Branding that there was like a consistency and in like, you know, key visuals and colors and tone and voice and stuff. And then he used us as an example and took a screenshot of our, of our website and it was like, "What is Oatly doing? It's all over the place." I actually would be content with that. I think that there is a voice that is, that is consistent through our work. But, but we do different things. You know, we'll petition governments. Will hold the rope with, you know, telling people in stories to ditch milk and we'll do puppet shows and we'll write super long Instagram post. And when Corona comes over, we will talk about it, drink at all just because we think everyone needs a break. So I think, I think that the strength of our, of our brand is... Or one of the strengths is that people just don't really know what will come next and hopefully these puppets aren't expected for...
Tom Ollerton 20:55
I think that's... I think that is absolutely sure. But... I was having this argument with David Byrne from Aviva that I was referencing a conversation or an interview on my podcast with another brand Gareth Turner from Weetabix. And he had this quote, which is, his boss said he doesn't want creative marketers. He wants consistent marketers or something like that, probably got that wrong. And it really stuck with me because like, oh, right. Yeah, like in an FMCG space where you're, you know, you've got good awareness, people would consider buying you as a thing, but like that, having just that consistency of messaging and tone and visual showing up. And David from Aviva, which you said, that's B.S., you know, that's just... It's fine if you're a really big FMCG brand. But maybe think of this execution. But yeah, you're predictably unpredictable and you never know what's going to come. But like as you move into the mainstream, when there's like even more like oat milk or dairy alternatives that you're going to be in that space of like, well, it might as well be Oatly or Minor Figures or, you know, in Sainsbury's own or whatever, like. And at that point, the consistency and reputation of your brand may be the thing that makes you stand out, but you can't always be the radical BrewDog of BrewDog of milk, or can you? Is that it? So are we going to have this conversation in ten years time? You go, "Tom, I'm still inconsistently inconsistent." Sorry, I'm making a meal of this question. But like, can you carry on being subversive and dangerous and provocative while you head into the mainstream? Once you're there, once you're the... Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola of oat milk? Isn't that just gonna be a bit weird if you still talk, acting like teenagers in the nicest possible way.
Michael Lee 22:57
No, I totally get your point. And I think, I think it becomes very difficult to do. I also think that we always talk about, of course, we're not the, we're not the scrappy upstart that we were, you know, five or six years ago. Now, we're a global brand. We're listed on the, the stock exchange. But with that comes, you know, leverage and power. And I think it's about using that power and that same kind of way. I mean, we we talk about like in the face of, in the face of increased competition, you know, different, oat drink brands and or any plant-based brands coming into existence every day. There's a tendency to just kind of go back to the marketing playbook and say, "Oh, here's, here's a situation where you're in a competitive field." You need to find your unique, different sort of, you know, you need to do product ads like you need to do. You need to talk about the benefits of why you're better than this on this one. And we actually are very cognizant not to fall into that trap and to continue to try to provoke society in different ways because otherwise we just become one of the competitors. We just become a part of the wallpaper of brands that we'll see in supermarkets. So I think it's incredibly important that we, we continue to stay to stick to our guns and, you know, fulfill this mission to try to change society.
Tom Ollerton 24:57
So what one of the comments from Julia on the show was that she felt that it might be a route down towards the children's market? Was there anything in that? And you said, who doesn't love puppets? I don't certainly love puppets, but as she said, "Well, it's just like puppets are fairly universal." But was there any sense that it might start a target, an incredibly young audience by using puppets?
Michael Lee 25:24
Well, we actually never thought that. I mean, we always owned this, this campaign was always kind of position for, for adults. I mean, the medium buy is all 18 or 24+ or 18+. So the campaign, this campaign was always meant for, for an older audience.
Tom Ollerton 25:48
And Jerry Daykin's point was, was that it's quite a big ask. Not all people have the luxury of time to to even watch a 30-second teaser. But yeah, your advertising your advert in a sense. So was there an anxiety that like you weren't making the work in like super short form easy, and then you said, you've done cut downs, teasers, but Jerry saying you're asking a lot, to stop watching TV and go to YouTube and then watch a whole series like that. You know, that's not exactly a rotating GIF of a product. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But was that a concern that the ask was very, very high?
Michael Lee 26:30
Yeah. I mean, I think our thing is... You know, just like our Instagram posts, you know, if, if the coffee is good, people will read it. And if we, if we make these shows, you know, funny and entertaining enough then people will, will seek them out. One of the things that we didn't want to do with these, these episodes is, is make them feel like like they're not commercials. So, you know, if we had to crack everything into a 30-second spot, it would feel like, you know, an ad for children, cereal or something. It would just it would just feel like a commercial would feel. And when you have the luxury of two to five minutes, you can put in a five seconds of awkward silence. You can, you can delve deeper into, into some some storylines and create some, some semblance of, of character. But that's what we wanted to do. So, yeah, we did... We did create these these trailers to act as kind of the teasers that would get people to go on YouTube or Oatly.com. And for me, it was always like even if people to get to see these trailers, that's, that's fine because essentially we've made a... Because the two characters are, oat drink, Oatly cartons. It's it's it's essentially just a product campaign. So when you watched the first episode, which is five minutes long, it is just staring at our product for five minutes. So the sales guys love that.
Tom Ollerton 28:25
I'd love to love to do an edit, which is like it's set up as a commercial for children and gets really dark. You know, when the, when milk comes along and he's talking about, you know, if it wasn't for that pesky science and he loses his rag about everything else and one of my favorite bits. But just to quote Emma Roffey here, she, she really enjoyed it. Interesting to get a B2B marketer to review, I thought... But she was saying that kind of, but sort of the bit about the the puppets, the being real and they're not real. And then I think at the end of one of the episodes, it's just like the, you know, the end slate and there's a minute's worth of audio going, discussing that, you know, discussing the process of what are the main characters. So you go really heavy on that. You know, you really push that joke to it's like, you know, as far as I think as you could. So I... The question here is, did you go too far there? Is the in-joke breaking the fourth wall necessary, you know, could you? Why is the ad five minutes? You could definitely nailed most of those messages in two. So like and if, and if you can do five or ten, why don't make it like a half hour show? So help me understand how you knew when enough was enough and when too much was too much.
Michael Lee 29:52
Oh, I don't... Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you ever know. But I think that for us, it's like we haven't made these so we like them. And if, and if we didn't like it, then why? Why do it? So actually about that sequence at the end, it came about from improvisation in the studio when we had the actors kind of working out the script. So they... We wrote the script, obviously, and did some versions of the script, and we just asked them to go bananas. And so that was a take that they just, went really, really long winded. We just thought it was really funny so we kept it in.
Tom Ollerton 30:44
So, just curious to know, so why do you... Two questions, why do you think this is great? And what are you disappointed about with this execution?
Michael Lee 31:02
Why do I think it's great? I think that... I think if people think, if people see these and, and think to themselves, "Wow, this is, this is really weird and entertaining and I'm kind of learning something or it makes me think about, about something or pushes me towards trying or considering something plant-based, then, that's, that's kind of a win for us. Disappointed? I don't know. I quite, I quite like them. I don't know... Yeah, I think the question for us is, is do we do we continue with, with Norm&Al in the future on some stuff? Or do we just like, say, okay, "That chapter is done and do something new."
Tom Ollerton 32:07
So are you going to continue with The Norm&Al Show?
Michael Lee 32:11
I have no idea. I don't know yet.
Tom Ollerton 32:13
Come on, don't give me that. Don't like, don't say that. I'm not... I'm not going, I'm not going to make you commit to the work, but I'm like, you must have had a conversation. Is your like is your feel that this is going to run and run? Or is your feel that like, let's be unpredictable and do something else?
Michael Lee 32:30
Well, I think, I think we'll, you know, we always just kind of follow, follow the momentum on, on where the energy is and what we're doing. So if, if we feel that it's going to be, it'll be fun to make some more puppets, puppet shows and then we'll do that. We did have an idea of what was, once Norm&Al kind of found some fame through through their show in this, in this campaign that they would try to kind of corral that fame into their career as paid influencers. And then so other brands could hire Norman&Al to, to pitch their stuff. So maybe, maybe we'll do that. I don't know.
Tom Ollerton 33:22
Right. Yeah. Well, as long as they don't end up in like giant out-of-work actors handing out leaflets outside Sainsbury's and Tottenham, then...
Michael Lee 33:31
I think that would be brilliant.
Tom Ollerton 33:33
Or if they were completely, completely wasted drunk, rolling around on the floor, you know, that might be a use of... Anyway, I'm gonna stop coming up with crap ideas during your interview. Michael, we've got massively over time, but thank you so much. That was a fascinating insight into a very unusual campaign.
Michael Lee
No problem. Always a pleasure.
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