"Norm's Old Pal Milk"

16 January 2022

5 mins 11s

Sticking it to whitey.

There's disruptive marketing... and then there's this! Oatly boldly go where no brand has gone before, and flatly attacks their main rival in a fashion rarely seen outside a boxing ring. And by 'rival', we don't mean some fly-by-night oat milk brand. No, no, no… they're going after Big Dairy, and they're going in hard.

Many of us who've remained loyal to fresh milk have done so with a niggling sensation in the back of our minds that it's not the responsible choice. The carbon footprint of those multi--litre containers sat in our fridges is becoming harder and harder to ignore, but the sheer ubiquity of a product we all grew up with makes it difficult to picture life any other way.

For a long time, milk alternatives were for cranks… and the rest of us – whether we care to admit it or not – silently sneered at those who had made the conversion.

This short film… the first in a series from the self-styled Oatly Department of Mind Control and Nexus's Connor Finnegan, confronts the idea that milk is not the responsible choice in a fashion which is going to ruffle some feathers. Big Dairy is not going to like it, and – we venture to suggest – some of those who prefer milk to the alternatives will feel attacked as well.

They shouldn't. No one should feel attacked. We should all welcome the opportunity to reconsider our choices, and a film like this which confronts the issue head-on with humour is to be admired.

Connor Finnegan lands the script's gags with brutal ferocity, amping the confrontation to the absolute max in pursuit of this campaign's goal. The outcome is terrific, and everything we should want from modern advertising... It's funny, it's disruptive and – most important of all – we strongly suspect that it will work.

UK

Cereal Based Snacks