What does OATLY's move from Paris streets say about French coffee culture?

OATLY, the oat milk brand familiar to coffee drinkers, first drew attention with graffiti advertisements on the streets of Paris, shown in three Instagram short films last November. It has now taken a similar approach to rural China, spraying internet memes and Spring Festival messages urging people to go home onto red-brick village walls.

Reactions split. Some viewers found the wall ads warmer than big-city screens, while others questioned the limited reach, the weak tie to the product, and whether the price suits the rural audience. For coffee enthusiasts, the case shows how a coffee-related brand borrows street style from French coffee culture and adapts it elsewhere.

OATLY, a brand of oat milk well known among coffee lovers, previously drew attention with graffiti advertisements on the streets of Paris, France. Recently, the brand has shifted its marketing focus to rural China, launching a Spring Festival ad short film themed "painting walls at the village entrance," spraying internet memes and warm copy urging people to go home onto red-brick earthen walls. This move has sparked sharply different reactions among netizens: some were deeply touched, believing it was more heartfelt than big city screens; others questioned the ad's limited reach, its weak connection to the product, and the difficulty of its price appealing to the target audience. This article reviews the creative highlights and points of controversy of this marketing campaign, and explores its market effects.

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For those who love coffee, the name OATLY is quite familiar. The oat lattes launched by many domestic chain coffee brands use this brand's oat milk products. In addition to the drinks themselves, OATLY's street advertisements in Paris, France, also successfully caught the attention of many consumers.

Last November, OATLY shared three short films via Instagram, documenting the brand's outdoor graffiti advertisements on the streets of Paris. All three ads, without crossing the red line of French advertising law, cleverly integrated OATLY's brand image and representative products into street graffiti art, creating a visually striking effect.

OATLY's brand design itself carries graffiti DNA, and when combined with French street graffiti, the advertisements took on a novel and unique appearance, winning the favor of young consumers. For this reason, the brand wanted to replicate this approach in China as well, except this time OATLY did not choose the streets of a bustling city, but instead turned its gaze to the red-brick earthen walls at a rural village entrance.

From the ad short film recently released by OATLY, the theme of this round of "painting walls at the village entrance" is closely tied to the upcoming Spring Festival, with the core appeal being to persuade young people in the city to go home and visit. The graffiti slogans on the walls blend internet memes with warm words urging people to return home, sprayed onto blank rural walls to form a heartfelt scene.

The popular graffiti art, the distinctive advertising creativity, and the current hot topics—when these three are combined, this short film precisely touches the softest place in the hearts of those wandering and striving in the city. Many netizens who watched the short film said they were moved, and instantly felt the urge to "go home."

In terms of advertising and marketing, OATLY's new move indeed fits the Chinese market and genuinely strikes consumers' emotions. Some netizens commented, "Isn't this better than big screens in the city?!" and "Buying big screens in the city is worse than painting a wall in the village!" The uniquely rural red-brick earthen walls paired with warm internet language produce an advertising effect that really appeals to young people. As netizens jokingly put it, OATLY successfully acted as parents' "mouthpiece" this time.

However, some netizens felt that OATLY's wall-painting advertisement this time was somewhat baffling.

The previous graffiti advertisements were placed on the streets of Paris, where foot traffic is high and it is easier to attract passersby's attention; but this time the wall-painting locations are not walls beside major traffic routes, but rather rural areas with sparse foot traffic, so the ad's reach is probably not as broad as before.

Second, the target audience of these wall-painting ads is also puzzling. If they are aimed at people who remain in the countryside, they may be illiterate due to limited education, or unable to understand the internet memes in the ad copy. If they are aimed at those wandering in the city, hoping young people will, while moved, buy more oat milk when stocking up on New Year goods, that is not impossible either, but the path seems too indirect.

In addition, some netizens said bluntly: "Workers who leave the countryside are usually more frugal, and it's hard for them to understand why something less nutritious than milk sells for more. OATLY's price really struggles to appeal to this group of consumers," and "I like every line of copy, but it feels like it has little to do with the product itself (personal feeling)."

It can only be said that OATLY's ad short film at least made quite a few people who originally did not plan to return home think about going back. As for whether its oat milk can open up sales through this wave of marketing, we still have to let market sales give the answer.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.