If you were watching primetime TV this weekend, you probably saw the new Oatly ad. It’s part of their campaign to sell more plant milk, and features teenagers shaming their Dads into giving up dairy. “Middle aged Dads” have been targeted, because apparently, they are the group least likely to swap dairy for soy, almond or oat milk. Fair enough, Oatly is a business, and businesses like to expand their client base – except, most don’t do it by championing the intervention of finger-wagging adolescents who make Greta Thunberg look like Joan Rivers.
As a result, the ASA has received 143 complaints, which include ‘targeting vulnerable teens’, offensiveness to dairy farmers, and ‘being sexist and ageist’. I’m not so worried about the first two – teenagers have always erred on the side of black-and-white thinking – and as according to Mintel in 2018, plant milks in the UK accounted for just 4% of volume sales, the farmers probably have other things to worry about right now. But ‘sexist and ageist’ is spot on.
In one advert, a sneering little Gauleiter waits in…
