00;00;06;23 - 00;00;33;25
Speaker 1
Hi. Welcome to Dig In the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights. Every week we interview founders, marketers and researchers, from innovative brands to learn how they're approaching their role and their category in a clever way. Welcome back to Dig In this Week. I'm so excited. I'm joined by Kevin Lynch, who's a creative director at Oatly based out of Malmö.

00;00;34;04 - 00;00;35;00
Speaker 1
Am I saying it right?

00;00;35;19 - 00;00;36;09
Speaker 2
Malmö.

00;00;36;26 - 00;00;41;14
Speaker 1
Oh, Malmö. So, I was really not saying it right at all.

00;00;41;14 - 00;00;47;12
Speaker 2
Malmö works as well. Yeah. It's the largest Swedish city that no one's ever heard of.

00;00;48;03 - 00;00;51;02
Speaker 1
Oh, wow. Yeah, it's. Is it bigger than Stockholm?

00;00;51;24 - 00;00;56;06
Speaker 2
It's not. It's. It goes Stockholm, then Gotham Burg, then. Then Malmö.

00;00;56;26 - 00;01;02;13
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. And today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about the sizes of different Swedish cities.

00;01;02;26 - 00;01;08;03
Speaker 2
Exactly. I think it's I think it's a you know, it's a topic that hasn't been explored enough.

00;01;08;12 - 00;01;28;07
Speaker 1
So marketers are always wondering. Yeah. No, In all seriousness, Kevin, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm really excited to dive into what it means to be a creative director at Oatly. Dive into your experience on the agency side. Talk through some campaigns. So thank you so much for joining me.

00;01;28;26 - 00;01;30;18
Speaker 2
No worries. Thanks for. Thanks for having me.

00;01;31;12 - 00;01;43;10
Speaker 1
Before we dive into all of that fun stuff, I do want to give the listeners just a little bit of a background on sort of who you are. Would you mind telling us a bit about your your sort of professional background?

00;01;44;03 - 00;02;13;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. You know, I think I think as I was as I was thinking about about that, I kind of feel like if you're in marketing more than 18 months, you do a little bit of everything. And that's that's kind of been the case with me. The my, my work story has been very geographically based. I started in Detroit, went to Chicago, up to Toronto, back to Chicago, over to Shanghai and Hong Kong, back to Shanghai and now to MoMA, Sweden.

00;02;13;05 - 00;02;41;07
Speaker 2
And most of those roles have been in ad agencies. It's been everything from, you know, a copywriter to a creative leader, department leader to an agency co-founder. And then the last two roles have have been on the client side. But basically, I kind of still feel like a you know, it started out as a junior copywriter. I feel like I'm still a junior copywriter, but I just have to go through two more meetings.

00;02;41;07 - 00;02;45;21
Speaker 1
Less less actual copywriting, More, more meetings. Yeah.

00;02;45;29 - 00;02;46;10
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;47;06 - 00;03;12;00
Speaker 1
So interesting. And we chatted a little bit about this prior to the podcast recording, but I'd love to tell the listeners a little bit about your your previous experience. Was it the it was out of school before you joined Oatly That was such an interesting story. So it was sort of how did that come about and why was that such an exciting opportunity for you?

00;03;12;21 - 00;03;38;10
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. You know, the it was the first the first job I had on the client side and, you know, the intention wasn't to, to jump to, to the client side. It really was sort of a, you know, looking for a role that I hadn't done before. And that just happened to be on the client side. So the first non agency role was as as the first director of marketing at Shanghai American School, which is kind of saying something.

00;03;38;10 - 00;04;11;07
Speaker 2
It's an SRS is China's oldest and largest international school. It's been around since 1912 and it's never had a marketing director. And so it had a bunch of things to say, but it didn't necessarily know how to say it. I kind of looked at at the role as as less of a job and more as kind of a mission, because it's it's this amazing institution that kind of didn't know how to tell its story for years prior to joining the school, my wife and I had had arrived in Shanghai looking for a school for our daughter.

00;04;11;23 - 00;04;32;22
Speaker 2
And as we toured around the different sort of international schools, SARS was actually at the bottom of the list. It was the best school in Shanghai, but it did such a poor job of kind of telling its story. You know, it didn't really understand its origin. It's sort of like where it came from, its DNA or what have you.

00;04;32;22 - 00;04;59;03
Speaker 2
And so, you know, to me, it was kind of like you always have these you always have a product that's never been advertised particularly well or has a crappy logo or what have you, and the opportunity to kind of take this little gem and go, Hey, this is a terrific thing, let's tell more people about it. I think was was really, really a unique treat and also think school's unique because it's not a you know, it's not a can of soup.

00;04;59;03 - 00;05;27;12
Speaker 2
You know, it's this kind of living, breathing entity. So the job is not just about, you know, creating these clever messages. It's about kind of developing this visual and kind of verbal lexicon that the community can kind of adopt and echo and kind of play a role in our in our success. Because, you know, you can you can say all you want in your it's sort of admissions materials, but if people aren't living in kind of breathing at, you know, the bullshit meters kind of go off.

00;05;29;07 - 00;05;55;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, totally. I mean, I just thought that was so interesting. Your your background is I mean, people always talk about the difference between like agency and client side and sort of what you learn and the pros and cons of both. Like now that you've been at Oatly for a little while, you know, you were at SARS and then you spent a lot of time in agency land.

00;05;56;12 - 00;06;11;20
Speaker 1
What would you say to that? Sort of like it seems like almost basically that that thing that like agency versus brand, like people learn very different things on both, like how do how have you found that.

00;06;11;20 - 00;06;44;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know the I think the word I don't know Lake Cloud a couple of years ago said agencies aren't really partners were vendors you know and I remember a bunch of controversy coming from that statement but I think there was a great truth to that. You know, as from an agency standpoint, you can give all this great thinking to clients that goes beyond a brief that really kind of hits on touch points that a client wasn't thinking could make a difference, but actually could.

00;06;44;17 - 00;07;14;04
Speaker 2
And and, you know, ultimately, though, you are in a little bit of a vendor role on the agency side and you're kind of crossing your fingers and hoping that the client's going to implement things, you know, operationalize things that, you know, some of the good advice that you're offering. And to me, the nicest thing about being on the client side is you never have to hand off, you know, you you kind of get to decide how deep you want to take this advice or thinking whether it's stuff you've generated internally or stuff that outside partners have done.

00;07;14;17 - 00;07;35;23
Speaker 2
But, you know, just to kind of be able to bring bring that to life and not count on someone else, deciding how much of an impact you're thinking it's going to have. I think there's something super, super rewarding about that. And that to me, just that that aspect of of never handing off I think is probably the biggest joy of being on the side of the on the side of the fence.

00;07;37;05 - 00;07;59;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, I hear that a lot. Even just when you're doing candidate interviews, like working on the agency side, as a marketer, you definitely don't get to see how things go sometimes. So you have a sense from the client of, you know, it was well received or hit the KPI as we were hoping for, but you don't necessarily know for certain.

00;08;01;21 - 00;08;25;22
Speaker 1
Is there anything that you would say, do you think, having worked in the agency, agency side of marketing for some time, that you think you're sort of super great at, like just because of the fact that you spent so long within the agency world that you get to sort of bring to the client side.

00;08;25;22 - 00;08;26;21
Speaker 2
Got to do Yeah.

00;08;27;00 - 00;08;28;13
Speaker 1
Just flatter yourself, really.

00;08;28;25 - 00;08;55;15
Speaker 2
So now I really, you know, I think for from an agency side, the you know, you work with such a diverse group of stakeholders on the agency side and so being able to really get to get to how to frame an idea and figure out, you know, what different different lenses are, you know, when you're talking to different people, everyone's going to kind of have their own lens of what they're looking for from an idea.

00;08;55;27 - 00;09;19;16
Speaker 2
Right. To be a bit intuitive about that, I think is is something that probably happens pretty naturally on the agency side. You know, you have like the presenting skills, the storytelling skills. I know that sounds pretty cliche these days, but but I really do think that that that stuff gets developed really well on the agency side. Yeah.

00;09;20;13 - 00;09;45;20
Speaker 1
Yes, that makes sense. I'm just always curious. I think it's yeah, it's something that people say all the time. Like you learn very different skills. But yeah, it's that that's really helpful, just as a way of sort of better understanding your background and now you're an only, which is really, really cool. So what does it mean to be a creative director at only?

00;09;45;20 - 00;10;15;06
Speaker 2
Great, great question. I was hoping you could tell me. It's it's been two years. I still haven't figured it out. And I don't mean to try and avoid the question, but, you know, the the it's kind of hard to answer because it's so the creatives that only work on work under the Department of Mind Control and and one of the few sort of mantras we have is to be consistently and consistent and, and you know, by thinking that way, I think it allows sort of a flexibility.

00;10;16;02 - 00;10;41;04
Speaker 2
You know, if you think about only in sort of the audience, the work we're serving, you know, how people feel about plant based products is constantly changing what they know about sustainability and what actions they want to take. That's constantly changing. And of course, that varies, you know, based on your region or country or what have you. So so I think that, you know, that that consistently and consistent mantra, you know, well, it doesn't give you much guidance at a job.

00;10;41;22 - 00;11;14;01
Speaker 2
It does give us a really nice, smart sort of flexibility. And the other thing is, you know, I think if you look at what we as a brand are, you know, we we tend to thrive on surprising and delighting people and you really can't do that if you're kind of repeating yourself over and over, I think, were where you'd find the most consistency in terms of in terms of what we do is is is like is it an you know, is it a fearlessness of of our work?

00;11;14;01 - 00;11;34;05
Speaker 2
I think, you know, one of the one of the first things that was developed at Oatly by John Schoolcraft, who I don't know what his title is, but it seems to be in charge of everything creatively. And Tony is our CEO. You know, they did this chart of companies and on the you know, the X-axis is a range between good and evil.

00;11;34;16 - 00;11;55;26
Speaker 2
And on the Y axis is a range between scared shitless and fucking fearless. And, you know, basically the chart kind of shows that the vast majority of companies kind of sit in this scared shitless quadrant, you know, and then you get to the fucking fearless side and there's evil, fearless companies like the Monsanto's of the World and, and apologies if they're one of your clients.

00;11;57;09 - 00;12;26;03
Speaker 2
And then there's, you know, really good, fearless companies. And that's where we do our best to be out. And I think being fearless and acting fearless is it really is a massive sort of competitive advantage. I think that that, as you know, the volume of as as audiences have kind of been given a microphone and been, you know, given sort of an increased volume, I think, you know, I think companies have gotten even more risk averse.

00;12;26;03 - 00;12;44;04
Speaker 2
And so to to continue to act in a sort of fearless way, there's a lot of confidence that comes from that. But I also think just a real sort of advantage to to take on a situation with with much more with with a lot of a broader range of of what the right thing is to do than if all you're trying to do is mitigate risk.

00;12;44;19 - 00;12;45;08
Speaker 2
Does that make sense?

00;12;46;00 - 00;13;14;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, no, that does make sense. I mean, Department of Mind Control. Well, that's very that's very fun. It reminds me of the I think we talked about this before, but the conversation I had with another brand who Liquid Death and he was the head of marketing was the leader of cult indoctrination. So I love the the creativity in the titles there.

00;13;15;12 - 00;13;44;14
Speaker 1
I did. I did. I guess I have a couple of questions about this. Be consistently inconsistent. So is that sort of the guiding principle when it comes to like the create creative and copying campaigns? Like how does someone with sort of onboarding into the Oatley creative team, how would they sort of take that and run with that and make sure that they were consistently adhering to the idea of being consistently inconsistent?

00;13;45;06 - 00;13;51;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. You know what? I think if you join only you don't take something and run with it. You take something and walk with it and.

00;13;52;05 - 00;13;52;13
Speaker 1
Still.

00;13;52;13 - 00;14;13;00
Speaker 2
Be a few times along the way as well. It's like literally we have I think we have an incredibly distinctive brand, but we don't have a brand book written down anywhere really, you know? Yeah, we don't have like guidelines. We don't have we don't have, you know, sort of guardrails for people to know words that we like to use.

00;14;13;26 - 00;14;35;27
Speaker 2
It really. It's a very intuitively run place. And and so we're really careful in terms of the folks that we hire and we look for the same kind of sort of sensibility that that, you know, we think could could be a good mesh. But, you know, you look at like typefaces, you know, like the most basic of branding elements.

00;14;36;10 - 00;14;54;04
Speaker 2
And we've we've had dozens of typefaces, you know, and and all of them are hand done and all of them like have some some level of like, you know, there's there's a great connection there. But, but again, like, you know, to not be able to have a typeface and not be able to point someone to a brand guide that's that that's kind of radical.

00;14;54;04 - 00;14;55;05
Speaker 2
It's kind of it.

00;14;55;05 - 00;14;55;23
Speaker 1
Is.

00;14;56;23 - 00;15;23;01
Speaker 2
When I was when I was interviewing with with only for the first time, I didn't have a website together or anything like that. It wasn't, you know, this nerves unprepared. Shocking. Yeah. And so, you know, I thought, okay, well let's, let's put together some samples or what have you. And so I did, you know, did a deck and started with, you know, five reasons why I might be right for only I'm not sure if I will never talk to the talk to them before.

00;15;23;15 - 00;15;34;23
Speaker 2
And and so, you know, number one was like our international experience at the time I was already in China and I'd been in Toronto, which is clearly international for us Americans.

00;15;35;02 - 00;15;35;25
Speaker 1
Clearly.

00;15;35;26 - 00;15;54;27
Speaker 2
But, you know, but then on the client and agency side, I'd worked for mission driven brands. I forget what the fourth one was and I got to the fifth and I was like, I couldn't think of five. Right? And they're like, That's fine. You know, like a normal person would just go back to the cover and change 5 to 4.

00;15;55;08 - 00;16;14;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, but it's like, No, no. So the thing that I sent them, you know, had one, two, three, you know, for good reasons. And when they got to the fifth, the fifth one started out like, Oh shit, I can't believe I promised you five reasons and I can come up with four. This is so embarrassing. And like to me, I didn't know this at the time, but it like, that's a very old ish thing.

00;16;14;14 - 00;16;17;28
Speaker 1
I was just going to say that feels like something out of a Notley campaign.

00;16;18;15 - 00;16;38;08
Speaker 2
Totally. Totally. And so, you know, I think it's sort of things like that that we look for in people's work and in sort of, you know, their conversations with us and what have you. And so you do, you know, you do walk, you do stumble, you do kind of have to figure things out a bit on your own at Oatley and kind of develop that intuition.

00;16;38;08 - 00;17;05;11
Speaker 2
But but we found that to be just, just a really nice way to for, for people to, you know, not only not only speak the only language but put, you know, add out a few accents along the way. You know, I, I think the reason why there's no rule book on the branding thing is because there there is that consistently inconsistent thing that we we want to continue to kind of evolve who we are and how we express ourselves.

00;17;05;11 - 00;17;15;18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm just thinking now about the copy. Is there a specific copywriter within each sort of creative team?

00;17;15;18 - 00;17;40;08
Speaker 2
It's not. So I can speak more for, for an email, which is Europe, Middle East Africa. Yeah, that's sort of an and Australia-New Zealand are thrown in there because we're geography, but in our group we have we literally just have a pool of like a half dozen people or some art directors and we'll just mix and match based on whatever whatever assignment kind of comes up.

00;17;40;08 - 00;17;59;10
Speaker 2
So we tend to be a very verbally driven brand. And so most of you know, most of the creative leaders have a have a writing background. But yeah, yeah, no, it's it's really it's funny, when I when I first joined, I was remarking to one of the creative leaders like that, it's just so great how consistent it is.

00;17;59;10 - 00;18;19;23
Speaker 2
And then like I don't know if it's consistent. Like usually you can kind of tell whose version of the only voice it is. And I think if you really, really dive into it, you can probably see a little bit of a difference. But but again, there's I think that one of the consistent things that you will see is like there's just a great sense of humanity.

00;18;20;03 - 00;18;33;10
Speaker 2
There's a little bit of a rambling and there's a little bit of an authenticity and sort of honesty and, you know, transparency. I think you see a lot of that in the in the work, definitely.

00;18;33;10 - 00;19;04;06
Speaker 1
And I mean, that's like reflected in the actual sort of product as well, Right. In terms of transparency, like talk, you know, being really transparent about what it is you're actually drinking and transparent about your mission. And I was thinking about the copywriting because I know that Ollie is such a sort of verbally based brand, and I was thinking you you would kind of need to be a pretty seasoned copywriter to be comfortable, like with a lack of guidance on being consistently inconsistent.

00;19;04;06 - 00;19;34;25
Speaker 1
So as someone who has a coffee background, I was just like, that's quite fascinating. That sort of yeah, you have different copywriters without a brand book, working on working on different campaigns, but sort of still coming up with this like magical mix of stuff that all sounds like it's authentically coming from the same place because maybe internally you guys can tell which copywriter worked on which campaign, but I'm obviously a huge nerd for Oatly Brands.

00;19;34;25 - 00;19;38;13
Speaker 1
Amazing, and I've never been able to tell.

00;19;38;17 - 00;20;01;06
Speaker 2
So next, next level, we'll let the gang know. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. One one of the one of the creative leaders in the department he had worked with with a few of the other folks with John and some of the other folks. And he would say that it took him like two years before he really kind of felt comfortable and felt like he got the brand.

00;20;01;06 - 00;20;20;18
Speaker 2
And that was someone who's a fantastic writer familiar with, you know, John and I think a lot of John's voices and the only voice as well. And even that it took him a little while to kind of kind of feel things out. So I used to joke that I was much more confident on day one, that I was on day 30.

00;20;20;18 - 00;20;28;17
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I don't think that's funny at all. Yeah.

00;20;28;17 - 00;20;54;11
Speaker 1
Like Megan, Where are you laughing? It's not a joke. Oh, man. Okay. And then more on the warm and fuzzy is like, what do you love about working at Oatly? What is, you know, sounds like this whole being fearless thing consistently and consistent. Like, all of those sound amazing, but just in terms of actual sort of the work that you're doing there, the team like what is it that that keeps you there?

00;20;54;29 - 00;21;24;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I really believe in the mission of Oatly. I believe in the voice of the brand. I believe in a brand that's human, you know, that treats people with intelligence and, you know, rewards all sort of curiosity that that people that people will, you know, will give to it. You know, I think, you know, I think the only voice sort of understands that if you want to persuade people to change behavior, you know, it's better to use laughter, not lecture, you know?

00;21;24;14 - 00;21;25;07
Speaker 1
Oh, that's nice.

00;21;26;00 - 00;21;37;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know what I always say? That last point came from our CEO, Tony, which I'm not sure if it's true, but I think if you ever have a really smart sounding quote and you don't know who said it, just save said it.

00;21;37;25 - 00;21;39;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely.

00;21;40;11 - 00;21;41;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;21;41;19 - 00;21;45;20
Speaker 1
For anyone looking for practical tips from this episode, that's a good one.

00;21;46;10 - 00;22;04;10
Speaker 2
Excellent. Excellent. But yeah, no, it just, you know, it feels like a really great fit. It it felt, it felt like a great fit. The minute I talked to them when I was I was still in Shanghai. We'd actually talked about a role in Shanghai originally. And ultimately, you know, there was sort of a need for a mandarin speaker.

00;22;04;10 - 00;22;24;18
Speaker 2
And I can I can order share long ball with the best of them. But my Chinese doesn't go much beyond that. So but yeah, we, we stayed in touch for about a year and a half and as I sort of explored other opportunities there wasn't anything even close to where I thought, you know what, this, this is sort of where I need to be.

00;22;25;02 - 00;22;53;06
Speaker 2
And so in, in towards the end of my contract in at the school in Shanghai, I called John and just said, you know, listen, I'm you know, my contract ends in three months and in December and in January, I'm going to move to Sweden and I'm going to start doing work for you guys. And I said, I'm hoping we can figure out contract details by Christmas, otherwise that the holiday party is going to be really fucking awkward.

00;22;53;06 - 00;23;12;28
Speaker 2
And I wasn't I was not kidding. Like, that is exactly what was going to happen. I just it just sort of felt like, yeah, it just sort of felt like like a place where you could really, truly contribute to to a cause that you believe in, to a mission that you believe in. And and I think that's super rare.

00;23;14;26 - 00;23;23;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I'm so glad they, they, they decided to give me the job before I moved here, but I was, I was really going to camp out on the doorstep.

00;23;24;14 - 00;23;26;19
Speaker 1
You know, like I was coming anyways.

00;23;26;25 - 00;23;27;24
Speaker 2
Yeah. It totally was.

00;23;29;00 - 00;23;54;20
Speaker 1
I am. I like what you said to where you mentioned, you know, treating people with intelligence. And I think that that's so accurate. Like in terms of it's like intelligence, but it's also like human being. So human in your odds, like noting that like people understand why they need to sort of move more to plant based and focus on sort of sustainable living.

00;23;54;20 - 00;24;13;23
Speaker 1
But they're also human who love, I don't know, ice cream and they love eating meat sometimes. Like it's just I think it's a very yeah, now I'm just nerding out. I think it's very smart the way that the copy works. So, um, yeah.

00;24;13;29 - 00;24;35;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's, it's, I think the yeah, I think some of my favorite stuff has been sort of an acknowledgment that, hey, you know, you're not, you know, if you, if you don't go plant based, if you're not vegetarian or vegan, like that's okay. Like you don't need to make this massive shift that, that, that behavioral changes are often in steps and we can play a really good step ourselves.

00;24;35;07 - 00;24;48;23
Speaker 2
So I think just acknowledging that gives I think it gives more realistic ambitions for us as a company and I think it gives more achievable, you know, it gives a more achievable framing for people as well.

00;24;50;11 - 00;25;15;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, And before I'm not realizing that I've been rambling on for, for some time about the, the beautiful copy you guys run, we haven't actually gotten into any of the campaigns that I wanted to chat through. So talk to me about some of these. You sent through some really interesting stuff that you guys have done sort of around the world in terms of campaigns over the last couple of years.

00;25;16;03 - 00;25;19;26
Speaker 1
Talk to me about a couple of those and why they're sort of definitively oatly.

00;25;21;00 - 00;25;42;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. Well, I do think, you know, what would makes stuff polish really is, you know, treating that audience with respect, you know, kind of rewarding that curiosity, you know, not taking yourself too seriously, which is again, something that I think brands are have a hard time doing these days. And I don't know why that that makes us unique, but it really does.

00;25;42;08 - 00;26;06;04
Speaker 2
All that stuff seems fairly obvious, but, you know, for those of us who didn't build the brand to where it is, I think it's, you know, we get there and it just feels like we've been given this amazing stage to play on. And so and it feels like it's one of those things where you kind of, I don't know, in previous a previous jobs would be like, what's the worst possible thing you could do?

00;26;06;18 - 00;26;27;02
Speaker 2
Like it's just as a oh, that's a that's a really funny, funny thing. And you know, it makes for good meeting fodder here. It's like here. It's like, you know what? Let's go do that. Like, so I'll give you an example. We like, sometimes we will take photos of our billboards and we'll repurpose those as social media posts, kind of like a meta kind of thing.

00;26;27;13 - 00;26;52;09
Speaker 2
So we sort of we just kept going there. And so we took a bus stop ad in Amsterdam and we turned it into a floating boat, floating the sort of boat ad in the canals of Amsterdam. And then we made a Facebook post out of the boat ad and then we made a billboard out of the Facebook post that we hired this wonderful woman influencer to make a TikTok video featuring the billboard.

00;26;52;09 - 00;27;12;17
Speaker 2
And then we made a mobile billboard out of the Tik Tok video that we made a newspaper ad of the mobile billboard. Then we made a street mural of the newspaper ad, and then we did a video of the meeting where we talked about the mural. And then that video was then made into an Instagram post and like, I don't know, like, I don't know another brand that would have done such a thing.

00;27;12;17 - 00;27;37;09
Speaker 2
Like, but but I think just, you know, having this brand where you can take things to the Nth degree is really fun. Like, you know, not we're not afraid to do things wrong like, like we're this month, actually, we're just launching a newsletter that's being supported by a huge outdoor campaign in Berlin and London and Copenhagen and Amsterdam and Stockholm.

00;27;37;09 - 00;27;53;00
Speaker 2
And the first actually, the first ad for it was a billboard in Times Square. And if I didn't mention it, you can sign up at oatly dot com slash spam. That's called spam biology. But but like if you see your pudding.

00;27;53;26 - 00;28;01;22
Speaker 1
Sorry to interrupt you, but you're putting a billboard in Times Square or an ad in Times Square to sign up to a newsletter.

00;28;01;22 - 00;28;29;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, quite a lot of the creative in the campaign, you know, just kind of openly acknowledge the fact that this is probably not the best way to get people to sign up for our newsletter about, oh, drinks, you know, which is, you know, obviously like there's a, there's a humor thing too there. But it's again, I think it reinforces that transparency, you know, a little bit of the vulnerability of the message and, you know, having having us come off as a little bit more human and honest.

00;28;29;01 - 00;28;36;29
Speaker 2
And, you know, I think that's, you know, yeah, I think I think it's superficial. It's it's so stupid.

00;28;37;26 - 00;29;04;05
Speaker 1
I love it. Like, I just can't imagine being in the I would love to be a fly on the wall when you're like, okay, picture this. We're going to and I guess at Oatly, it's totally fine and normal. I'm picturing like any sort of agency or advising a client and being like, Picture this, right? We're going to take out a full billboard in Times Square where you get we get people to sign up to the newsletter.

00;29;04;15 - 00;29;14;12
Speaker 1
I just the client would be like, but how do we measure the conversion rate? You know, like, I just I think it's brilliant. It's funny. It's such a brand play.

00;29;15;12 - 00;29;40;12
Speaker 2
Well, it's and it's funny. Like, if you if you think of it from from that ROI standpoint, you look at like, you know, in Berlin or New York, we've got a couple of these massive, massive sides of buildings or, you know, huge, huge spaces in and some of the big train stations. And on one side, you know, half of the billboard says, you know, what's you know, what could be more more ridiculous than buying a billboard to advertise a free newsletter about, oh, drinks.

00;29;40;12 - 00;30;00;22
Speaker 2
And then the next billboard just says, buying two. And you kind of like ad like the entire half of your media buy is if you're looking at this from a from a what's the message being sent? You know, whenever you look at half of that space is wasted, we would say that the space that you think is wasted is actually it makes the whole thing memorable.

00;30;00;27 - 00;30;11;02
Speaker 2
And and so I do think that that's that's not a typical thought process that you'd find elsewhere, which we're we're kind of delighted because otherwise would be harder to get people's attention.

00;30;12;12 - 00;30;25;28
Speaker 1
You know, all of these ads, these campaigns we're talking about, there are all about sort of brand awareness and equity. Why do you think that this works so well for Oatly? And do you think it could work for other brands, or is it an only thing?

00;30;27;19 - 00;30;46;26
Speaker 2
No, You know, I think I mean, I think the best marketing isn't marketing at all. Like the best marketing is sort of an echoing of the experience of the brand. It becomes an extension of that brand. And so if you look at a brand like Oatly, you know, we're asking people essentially to take action. We're asking them to to change from a, you know, dairy based, to plant based.

00;30;46;26 - 00;31;17;15
Speaker 2
So a lot of our work tends to be engaging in the same way, like by asking for action. So, you know, whether our campaigns are asking that they sign a petition to stop in the EU, the European Union, from overly restrictive label language for plant based brands, or we're asking people to demand marketers, show us your numbers, you know, show us the climate impact of your of your products on the side of on the side to allow people to make a more informed decision.

00;31;17;15 - 00;31;45;22
Speaker 2
You know, we had a campaign in the Netherlands where we asked, you know, people to be a 100% climate where 10% of the time, which is basically, hey, can you just switch breakfast, switch your breakfast to two plant based, something like that. And if they did, you know, we would send them a patch, which by the way, if anyone listening wants a patch, you can write to my coworker Martin at Martin Lidcombe until I tell telling you, yeah, it's Martin And they are a team, which is like.

00;31;45;22 - 00;32;15;15
Speaker 2
MARTIN But Swedish. But but you know, there's there's a sort of you know, I do think that any marketer can do a better job of sort of thinking of how people engage with their brand. Think of what they're asking, asking of those of those people, and looking at what you can potentially duplicate in marketing. And I think you know, by doing so, the people you do get, you know, you just attention you do get are the ones who are right for your brand and they're right for kind of the ask that you have.

00;32;15;15 - 00;32;18;15
Speaker 2
So I think that's that approach has worked really well for us.

00;32;19;23 - 00;32;36;29
Speaker 1
Okay. Very cool. And to wrap up, I did want to ask about out any advice that you might have for I mean, that was a great piece of advice right there. But any other advice that you might have for marketers or creatives that are listening to this episode?

00;32;36;29 - 00;32;53;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I think if you're if you're, you know, doing ads that are all about product features or, you know, you have a pretty complex approval process or you rely on, you know, sort of extensive testing, you know, to kind of see what's funny, keep doing that because you're making it really easy for the rest of us to get noticed.

00;32;53;27 - 00;33;14;10
Speaker 2
But but seriously, if you know, if you are treating your audience with respect or you're rewarding their curiosity or you're leaving room for them to participate, and and by participate, I mean like, you know, not, not in a, you know, click click like on the post or take a useless survey or, you know, offer your opinion to something that ultimately isn't going to change thing.

00;33;14;10 - 00;33;38;18
Speaker 2
But if you're, you know, if you're leaving room for for, you know, participating in something that leaves the world a little bit little better place, I think, you know, keep doing that because I don't think there's enough brands in the world that are doing that now. I think there is an opportunity for more brands to do that. That's not just strictly self-serving, that goes beyond their own sort of business interests, and that makes it makes the world a little bit of a better place.

00;33;38;18 - 00;33;53;15
Speaker 2
I, I, I think it's really beneficial for brands because there aren't enough brands that are doing it. And I think it's it's a great opportunity for us in marketing to to kind of plus up the world as well.

00;33;53;22 - 00;34;07;06
Speaker 1
Amazing. Thank you so much, Kevin. This has been such a pleasure. We will definitely include a sign up to the only newsletter in the show notes and we'll include Martin's email address. Anyone will tell.

00;34;08;18 - 00;34;13;24
Speaker 2
You what, I'm not even going to tell him that you did. That is so let's see what sort of responses people get.

00;34;14;03 - 00;34;20;26
Speaker 1
He's like, What happened? Where did you who are these Canadian? Yes.

00;34;21;18 - 00;34;38;00
Speaker 2
So so the background is we we keep on putting Martin's email in all our all our campaigns around the world. Oh Martin like yeah like we've had it in Spain and New Zealand and Amsterdam and New York and so now, now in Canada.

00;34;38;03 - 00;34;39;05
Speaker 1
So we can.

00;34;39;22 - 00;34;44;12
Speaker 2
Expand our geographic range of Martin's email.

00;34;44;12 - 00;34;50;25
Speaker 1
Amazing. Um, I will talk to you soon and tune in next week, guys. We'll be back by Kevin.

00;34;50;26 - 00;34;55;08
Speaker 2
Thanks again. Take care. Thank you.

00;34;55;08 - 00;35;02;08
Speaker 1
Thanks for tuning in this week. Find us on LinkedIn at Digg Insights. And don't forget to hit subscribe for a weekly dose of fresh content.