👋 Buongiorno, Bonjour, Hola, Hello

Woohoo! It’s been a while, time to catch up on some content and marketing things!

🐝 How the Oatly Ad Missed the Mark

The Oatly ad everyone is hyping up didn’t work the way you think it did 🤦🏻‍♀️

They decided to bend the rules when it came to advertising in Paris. Regulations dictate that advertising with painted murals must be done ‘artfully’, without the use of products or logos.

Though many marketers on LinkedIn were loving the creativity and praising the brand on how they managed to get around these regulations, what they failed to realize is how it actually didn’t sit well with locals.

Something they seem to have forgotten? Some French people do speak English… most DON’T. And forcing a certain language on a culture is just… well, wrong. 🙄

This shows how Oatly misunderstood their audience from the beginning, and though many told me that this was supposed to be a digital way to go viral, many don’t realize that Oatly was hosting events all across the city.

If you scroll through their Instagram post on the ad, you can read multiple comments asking why in English and not French.

Answers like “well, everyone on the internet speaks English,” smell of arrogance when introducing your product to a market.

Answers like “our copywriter est en train d’apprendre le français” (is learning French) to then reply to another comment with “our French team gave us the greenlight” makes you question truly who was behind the campaign. The responses are a bit off and can make one doubt if there even is a French team.

But another way they did not hit the mark?

Street art in France is not used to sell products; it’s a way to challenge norms and voice societal concerns.

It’s a tool of the people, not corporations.

This is where we creatives need to understand the impact our work can have, and the dissonance between what we find viral and how it’s actually received by an audience.

What if Oatly had asked in French how non-dairy products can contribute to saving the planet? Maybe by starting an actual conversation and not just selling through its ‘street art’ campaign, it would have resonated.

Perhaps if they would have shown a genuine interest in French culture and values, their ads would not have seen the backlash they did.

“We hope our actions speak louder than our paint,” was the response they gave to my comment on Instagram.

Their actions did speak louder than their paint. As a purpose driven company, they could have gone so much better than a standard marketing tactic that feels like it came from the 90’s.

We creatives should be breaking the rules, but we should be doing it with some sort of positive purpose.

🗞️ Verónica’s news

Yesterday, I hosted my FIRST EVER workshop with Alt Marketing School.

Thank you so much to Fab and the team for letting me talk about why I believe that content can be used for good and a force of change.

P.S. Have you checked out the new website? I have some things planned for 2024, and needed a good central hub to make your experience with my content better.

Let me know what you think!

The impact of words extend far beyond the page.

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Have a good weekend!

Verónica