Oatly & Influencer Marketing
A brand I love is Oatly. Oatly makes great tasting oat milk and oat milk based products, like cream for coffee, oatgurt (yogurt alternative), ice creams, and chocolate oat milk. Not only does it make products I regularly purchase, but its marketing and branding is a breath of fresh air.
Oatly has serious endeavors, like animal welfare, but it has lots of fun at the same time. Oatly is quirky and highly stylized in its look and feel. It even has capitalized on critical comments and ideas. For example, on packages it had an illustration of a hand pointing outward with text saying, “You are one of us now.” (Think recruiting posters from WWII with Uncle Sam.) It turned the idea that veganism is a subculture on its head. Further playing into any haters’ objections, Oatly made shirts saying, “I’m with the cult” and had a “Brainwash-O-Matic” station to deprogram people from ideas promoted by the dairy industry. Again, this countered the notion that veganism is cultish. The Brainwash-O-Matic was a walk-through booth that gave free shirts promoting Oatly. Playing into its critics is brave and must be done right. Oatly has figured it out and manages to do it with the right tone and self-deprecation.
My favorite is the billboard it bought in London (the UK is a key market) for the London Coffee Festival saying in illustrated white text on a black background, “We made this mural instead of an Instagram post.” And then in much smaller letters, “Hope a Barista walks by and sees it.” While embracing the power of social media, Oatly has also framed marketing’s use of social platforms differently for people, so its brand gets more exposure. It thrives on challenging perceptions as its products do this, therefore its marketing takes up the same cause.
As quirky as Oatly is, it was begun in 1990 in Sweden (and remains based there). It has made waves in the plant-milk industry and could even be called a disrupter to the animal milk industry. In May of 2021, Oatly became a publicly traded company with an opening valuation exceeding $10B. Investors include not only hedge funds, but also celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z. To boot, Starbucks offers it in its US stores nationwide. Now that is a (milk)shake up!
So where can influencers help? Even after all the poking fun at itself, Oatly is still a little too heavy on the push marketing feel. With 317k followers (on @oatly), it could (and should) grow its following by contracting with influencers to increase reach and resonance. Additionally, because Oatly has faced some recent challenges to its reputation (accusations of greenwashing and bad press from a lawsuit it initiated), it should lean toward influencer marketing to bolster its brand reputation and re-build trust.
With a bit of research, I found a few influencers at different “levels” that could engage an Oatly friendly audience. Oatly, an established brand and publicly traded company, should likely use a multi-influencer approach. What I propose below is not comprehensive, but Oatly could reasonably work with multiple influencers across varying levels of reach, simultaneously.
The biggest influencer I found was @thefoodietakesflight. Jeeca is a 23-year-old “creating dishes from her childhood, travels and more.” Her Instagram page is images of food on the level of food porn and it all looks amazing. (I’ve never wanted noodles more in my whole life than when I researched her IG.) She boasts more than 550k followers and is a macro-influencer.
Her page might seem an odd choice because 80% of her cooking and recipes are Asian foods/dishes. Typically, Asian food has very little of any milks as ingredients, though some use coconut milk in soups and noodle dishes. She did post a few baked goods items, though. As we know, Oatly is a brand that offers alternatives to animal milks. That said, she has a large following and could easily promote Oatly in a post campaign. Maybe even more effectively she could promote them through a product for content campaign whereby she provides the content directly to Oatly for posting on its page.
Her content resonates highly with her Instagram audience, though she is still building her TikTok following. Engagement is all over the board, but I saw likes exceeding 141k on a video post and as low as 4k for an image. Her content is a mix of images and videos, but she will need to include more video content because the demand for video content continues to increase. Because of her established following, Oatly could benefit tremendously by working with @thefoodietakesflight.
Another influencer that Oatly could work with is @vegashi269. I could not find the identity of this person or people, but it’s clear what they are about: veganism and memes that promote it. With 13.9k followers, @vegashi269 is a micro-influencer. The content on @vegashi269 would complement Oatly’s wackiness, though there is a high level of snark in the memes and that same level of “bite” is not present in Oatly marketing. Still, @vegashi269 is circulating memes (mostly non-original content) that engage the vegan and transitional vegan audiences.
These memes are like kerosene on the vegan fires of passion and add humorous moral support to vegans and their lifestyle in a non-vegan world. Since there’s not a person or face to this account, this influencer would work well were it to promote Oatly in its familiar meme-style. Both Oatly and @vegashi269 campaign for animal welfare and so their interests intersect. For that reason and those above, @vegashi269 would be a good outgrowth for Oatly and could expand its exposure significantly.
Finally, another influencer that could work with Oatly is @whatsgoodberto, or Berto Calkins. Berto is a podcaster and social media influencer who has already promoted several brands. He has more than 65k followers, making him a mid-tier influencer. Additionally, influencer marketing from an African American should appeal to Oatly because African Americans are historically wholly absent (or vastly underrepresented) in vegan food branding. Securing brand loyalty from a burgeoning demographic would be a coup for Oatly. Berto is keenly aware of this as evidenced by his promotions.
Berto’s partnerships have included Lightlife, Field Roast, and TD Bank. Interestingly, but not surprising, his paid partnership post for TD Bank had some of his lowest engagement. This brand was out of his biosphere and I’m unsure why he’d have agreed to this other than just to test it. My only caution in partnering with Berto Calkins is that his credibility among his followers may soon decline simply because he has partnered with several brands already.
Berto’s influence would work well with Oatly as his content is overwhelmingly about food and veganism. Much of his posts are how to eat out and about in Brooklyn, NY as a vegan, but his recent posts show more posts of him cooking. He is obviously incorporating more videos on Instagram and is building up his TikTok following. He also operates another Instagram account, @wholelottafoodshit with just under 5k followers. The video format is a natural entrée into cooking videos and, using his food-based content, this feels natural and on-brand for him. Berto would bring the fitness and lifestyle crowd to influencer marketing for Oatly, showing his followers where it fits into their daily lives.
Other influencers to consider for Oatly would be animal advocacy-based influencers. Particularly @moustache_farmer comes to mind. He is based in Germany, which is a key market for Oatly and fits with its European origins. Joar Berge enjoys a large following with 107k followers, so is another mid-tier influencer. Many of his videos are of cows (and cuddles with them). Because cows are spared the most by plant-based milk products, those interested in the welfare of cows are very likely vegan or transitioning to it.
Oatly is a powerful brand that could benefit greatly from influencer marketing. Partnerships with vegan influencers and animal welfare advocates would feel natural as they are allies in promoting vegan products. These partnerships would bolster Oatly’s reputation on social media and build trust for its brand and products.
References:
Blitch, K. (2021). Influencer marketing message [Presentation]. University of Florida.
Carbone, L. (2020, December 5). Top 8 influencer marketing trends coming in 2021. Later. https://later.com/blog/influencer-marketing-trends/#:~:text=Influencer%20Marketing%20Will%20Be%20Bigger,budget%20in%20the%20next%20year.