Description
Oatly is back with another deadpan masterpiece, an ad made specifically for food lovers who apparently don’t need delicious, steamy, slow-motion food shots to get excited. Instead of staging a perfect bowl, styling a dish, or making oat fraîche look like it belongs on the cover of Bon Appétit, they just… tell you straight up that they didn’t bother.
And somehow, that honesty hits harder than any glamour shot could.
How It Works:
The humor comes from the loop they create: it’s a foodie ad for foodies who don’t care that the ad isn’t “foodie” at all.
By leaning all the way into minimalism and self-awareness, they turn a plain poster into a personality. The message is simple: “If you love food, you’ll love this, but we’re not going to try to seduce you with pictures.”
That unexpected twist makes the ad memorable, relatable, and strangely likable.
How You Can Reuse It:
Go meta. Speak directly to the audience in the tone that matches their identity, and then flip a classic expectation on its head.
Take something people assume your industry must do (big visuals, flashy styling, emotional storytelling) and boldly refuse to do it.
When your brand owns the joke, the audience feels like they’re in on it, and that shared wink creates connection without ever needing a single glamour shot.
