Social media users didn’t just see Oatly’s Ad in an Ad in an Ad. By viewing it, they literally became the latest part of the idea. The post told the story of a unique integrated campaign, with each execution building off the previous one and forming a chain reaction. Oatly’s role ended with the posting of a single, successful video posted on Instagram. But the chain reaction continued when it was viewed and shared. And now, it's turned into an award show entry. Oh, when will it end?

Oatly – the oat drink people, not the sunglasses company – was trying to reach a specific, influential audience in a few specific, influential neighborhoods in The Netherlands.

This audience had become familiar with Oatly – its oat milk was well-represented in nearby retailers and cafes. However, the brand had been quiet in the previous six months, and with a target audience that’s always on the lookout for emerging trends, our brand awareness and relevance was declining.

While we knew where and how our audience lived, we lacked a proper budget to reach them through a traditional media buy.

Instead, we created a social media-based brief, with the objective to create content that 1) harnessed Oatly’s unique, provocative, playful personality and 2) was self-propelling enough to rely heavily on earned media.

Brands often use social media posts to go viral. We went viral to create a social media post.

Each strategically-located execution in the campaign built curiosity and conversation amongst our audience – first, there was the bus stop ad; then there was the boat billboard about the bus stop ad; then there was the Facebook post about the boat billboard about the bus stop ad… and on and on it went, through truck signage, a newspaper ad, a TikTok influencer, a hand-painted mural…

The integrated campaign culminated with an execution that’s normally used to start these kinds of journeys: A social media post.

The growth of plant-based brands such as Oatly have been fueled by the vegan community. To continue growing, Oatly has been reaching out to audiences that are health– and environmentally–conscious such as LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability).

The LOHAS audience can be found in concentrated locations, both online (in social media), as well as in real life (in easily–identified neighborhoods). What’s more, the LOHAS audience are willing to be vocal advocates of brands that share their values, such as Oatly – and they could be instrumental in helping the brand reach the mainstream.

Our goal was simply to give them something worth sharing.

The executions of Oatly’s Ad in an Ad in an Ad lived where our audience lives – with ads placed in hip Amsterdam areas such as Jordaan and De Pijp, and Rotterdam’s trendy Katendrecht.

To maximize talk value, we spaced out each execution in the chain reaction, from 3 days to 3 weeks, depending on the step. Working with traditional media such as outdoor and newspaper called for exceptional coordination with no room for error. For example, the billboard truck shoot stills needed to be sent to the designer within an hour to make into an ad before the print deadline. And the minute the print shoot wrapped up, painting of the wall mural began.

The culminating challenge was to tell the complicated sequence in a social media–friendly 60 seconds or less. The final video managed to capture the entire chain reaction story, both forward as well as backwards.

We knew the only way we’d reach our goal of getting LOHAS people talking to their friends about Oatly was to bring our ad to the highly–shareable platform of Instagram. Were we successful? Well, if we weren’t, you wouldn’t be reading this awards entry…

Our community loved it and reacted just as we’d hoped. They shared it with their friends, who shared it with their friends, and their friends and their friends…

Here’s the story by the numbers:

- The organic post reached almost twice as many non-followers as followers.

- The post engaged 4.3% of the audience, five times higher than an average Instagram business account post.

- 25% of viewers watched the entire 60 seconds.

- The earned media value was almost 1.35 million euros, which was 14 times greater than the paid media budget.

Like the video itself, we thought those facts were worth passing on.