Two separate ad campaigns for supermarket staples have dropped recently, one from Oatly and the other from the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB), timed to the busy back-to-school shopping season.
And while each is sassy, snarky and on-brand in its own way–intentionally lo-fi on one end and boosted by AI on the other—the collective impact could turn the heat up to a rolling boil in the ongoing dairy wars.
Oatly has launched “Update Milk,” where the irreverent brand hacks into decades of milk’s history in media and entertainment, from vintage commercials and cartoons to educational filmstrips and reality TV.
The spots replace cow’s milk with an Oatly product via clumsy audio and cut-and-paste images that look like bad Photoshop, with cameos from celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse and animated kittens. The reimagined videos try to make the point that “few things are as old, outdated and antiquated as cow’s milk,” per the brand, and “the very idea of what ‘milk’ is has changed, and culture should reflect that.”
Unicorn tears
For its part, the CMPB and its agency of record Gallegos United premieres “Everyone Wants to be Milk,” starring a litany of outrageous fictional drinks like octopus milk, ghost milk, alien milk and unicorn tears milk.
The music-based video, with a soundtrack inspired by the kid’s tune “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” aims to advance the “real” versus “fake” argument and calls cow’s milk “the undefeated, real, healthy, tasty beverage champion.”
The agency team, which debuted the umbrella tagline “Get Real. Got Milk?” last year, had come across “an article talking about ‘potato milk’ as the next trend, and we thought, ‘Where will this end? Can anything be called milk?’” James Kulp, executive director and head of account management, told Adweek. “We felt this was the right time to let real milk be the hero to showcase there really is no substitute for the real thing.”
Food feud
Especially when viewed side by side, the Oatly and “Get Real. Got Milk?” campaigns highlight the bitter battle between Big Dairy and plant-based milk marketers that use ingredients like soybeans, almonds, grains and veggies.
The clash isn’t new—it has included years of fierce lobbying, lawsuits and rhetoric—but has intensified of late, with dairy groups arguing that plant-based alternatives shouldn’t be able to call themselves “milk.” (Meantime, milk substitutes have grown to about 16% market share).
The FDA waded in earlier this year with a temporary decision in draft form, saying plant-based milk brands can call their products “milk” but need to clearly specify the main ingredient, a la coconut milk.
The federal guidance also recommended, but didn’t mandate, that plant-based purveyors include information on-pack that shows how its product compares nutritionally to cow’s milk.
The ruling has done little to calm the food feud and may have had the opposite effect.
Singing kitties and 8-bit games
For example, the Milk Processor Education Program (known as MilkPEP) rolled out an ad this spring for a faux company called Wood Milk and a product sarcastically described as “artisanal” and “free range.”
The parody, from agency Gale and Saturday Night Live writer-directors, starred White Lotus actress Aubrey Plaza as the fake startup’s founder. Critics labeled the spot propaganda for the dairy industry, and in short order, Plaza turned off the comments for it on her Instagram post.
The latest commercials add another chapter to the continuing saga.
Oatly, via its in-house creative division called the Department of Mind Control, “scraped the interwebs” to find clips to repurpose “to reflect our current culture and ditch the antiquated ubiquity of cow’s milk,” per the brand.
The vignettes include a scene from the Emeril Lagasse Show, with the popular chef subbing oat milk in a cake recipe, and a 1930s cartoon with cats singing the praises of oat milk. “Update Milk” is airing on social channels, streaming services Peacock and Hulu and in theaters before the blockbuster movie Barbie.
“Everyone Wants to be Milk” from CMPB, released in English, Spanish and Korean versions, will get its own 8-bit digital game this fall, along with a push from influencers. The ad, with an assist from AI for its animation, will run on connected TV, paid digital and social platforms in California and on gotmilk.com.
