Oatly takes out ad in The Guardian to mock 'desperately out of touch' parents about pronouns in email signatures

[theskyispink]

twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1355862358728597507/photo/1

Take a drink - another drinks company goes ultra-woke.

Thanks for the Oato link, and the info about Glebe Farm oat milk. I’ll give them a try.

Is it an extra-thin version of gruel?

Me too. I'm intrigued by the Oato, now I've found out it can be delivered in glass bottles. I'm the only vegan of the household; the rest of the family are dairy-consumers, so we have a milkman order to reduce our plastic consumption. If I could reduce my personal consumption of tetrapaks, I'd be very happy about that.

Haven't rtft. Has anyone else been getting Oatly ads on Facebook? Also massively patronising. I've blocked them.
What on earth are they thinking? Ads are beyond twattish and annoying. It would make me switch to drinking milk...

@SophocIestheFox

What I’m finding very helpful about companies who mindlessly virtue signal is that it helps clue me in that they may not have anything substantive going on in terms of their corporate social responsibility, and they’re (consciously or not) deflecting from that.

With the controversies highlighted upthread, Oatly seem to be firmly in this camp.

It helps me find companies that actually do align with the relevant ethical values that I’m looking for: no palm oil in my peanut butter, fair trade in my coffee and sugar, no sweatshops in my clothing, no deforestation in my milk substitutes etc. Whether a beverage producer endorses my position on pronouns is utterly irrelevant. They can console themselves that I’m a hopeless dinosaur with no social conscience if they like, it’s their bottom line that will suffer when they find out they’re wrong!

Yes, everything you said.

As the shopper for a vegan family who previously bought Oatly by the case we will be switching thanks to what I have learned here.

Handily enough I have plenty of oatmeal and a good blender.

My eldest has also requested a different alternative to dairy so I will get on with investigating that suggestion.

Ha ha Derxa do you mean Gareth Wynn Jones on FB? I follow him and he's had a right go at Oatly for their inaccurate propoganda in the past week. They picked the wrong man to upset there. He has a huge following and can't be fooled by their 'facts'.
We love dairy in this house,so no danger of us ever trying their slop. As another poster said,isn't it just gruel? Same as what used to be doled out in work houses? And people are paying £1.80 a litre for it? Astonishing.

Haven't rtft. Has anyone else been getting Oatly ads on Facebook? Also massively patronising. I've blocked them.

Yep, same here, I have switched to a glass bottle oat milk delivery.

The points about the futility of oat milk in porridge and it basically being 21st century gruel are excellent. I have no answer to them and now I’m asking myself if I need oat milk at all?

It tickles me enormously if a campaign that supposed to encourage me to buy and use oat milk actually has the effect of turning a previous oat milk user away from it entirely 😂

Oh dear, Oatly. Might turn out to be a bit of a Ratners moment. Probably best to stick to the dairy replacements and sidestep the moral proclamations.

Minor Figures is better than Oatly

No more Oatly for me either. Pity because I liked the Barista one.

However, what I dont like is Oatly promoting a regressive, sexist and homophobic ideology that’s like something from the 1950s. I’ll stick with more liberal and 21st century milks, thanks Oatly.

Another one who has been put off by this advertising, partly it's patronising ageist rubbish, but also it has highlighted it's actual green credentials are far from good.
I started buying oatly when it first became available, I'm lactose intolerant and don't like the taste of soya/other milks in my tea and coffee.
When I looked into it oat milk was the 'greenest' option. It's tiring to have to keep checking whether a small company has actually turned into a big nasty one, and the takeover news had passed me by.

All this negative campaigning and aggressive shaming has actually put me off a lot of companies, and I feel that surely on balance it loses more than it gains? For instance, how many meat eaters does Peta actually win over?
As someone who has been vegetarian previously and done the odd Veganuary, I'm now of the opinion rather invest the time and money in sourcing locally produced, ethically reared meat and dairy then pay for these over processed substitutes. It also supports UK farmers and businesses.
No idea who this advert is really targeted at but as a middle class millennial I'm definitely their target market and they've lost me.

@TheFnozwhowasmirage

Ha ha Derxa do you mean Gareth Wynn Jones on FB? I follow him and he's had a right go at Oatly for their inaccurate propoganda in the past week. They picked the wrong man to upset there. He has a huge following and can't be fooled by their 'facts'. We love dairy in this house,so no danger of us ever trying their slop. As another poster said,isn't it just gruel? Same as what used to be doled out in work houses? And people are paying £1.80 a litre for it? Astonishing.

Yes I'm sure this will be very 'outing'. I loved his experiment where he put down a bowl of milk and a bowl of Oatly for his pups and they refused to drink the Oatly. All very scientific. His latest target is George Monbiot. I love how Gareth looks after the wild mountain ponies and educates people about them. People have every right to eat and drink what they want though. No lectures from me about that.

Ah jeesus. We buy 3-4 cartons a week, but no more, the absolute twats.
I had also completely missed the info about their buy-out, so that’s even more of a reason to find alternatives.

Thanks for posting this. They have lost another customer and her family here.

I've made my own oat milk before. Loads of recipes on the web like here:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/oat-milk

You can also make these Oat Pulp Thumbprint Soft Cookies with the leftover pulp:

Ingredients (16 cookies or squares)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup soft brown sugar
4 tablespoons coconut oil, melted (or vegetable oil)
1/4 cup desiccated coconut flakes
1 cup oat pulp* (obtained from homemade oat milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoons coconut/vegetable oil
Jam of choice
*If you happen to not have enough oat pulp to make a full cup, then add 1-2 tablespoons non-dairy milk to the dough if it is turning out too dry)

• Preheat oven at 200 degrees Celsius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Mix flour, baking powder and sugar. Break all sugar lumps.
• Next add 4 tablespoons of oil.
• Lift and mix with the fingers until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
• Add coconut flakes.
• Add oat pulp and vanilla. Mix until a dough is formed. Do not overwork or knead the dough.
• Coat the dough with 1 tablespoon of oil.
• Place dough in a square mold. Press and stretch it to the edges.
• Make dents in the dough so that you obtain 16 squares.
• Using your thumb or a round teaspoon, make a well in each square.
• Fill each well with jam.
• Bake cookies for 25 minutes.
• Do a toothpick test, if toothpick comes out clean, the cookies are done.

I trust everyone has seen this thread, if you would like to email them...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4153211-Oatley-need-our-opinions

Interestingly they are also getting criticised on Twitter right now for a different ad campaign that likens milk drinking to alcoholism It has a similar angle of throwing middle age people under the bus, which seems extraordinarily short sighted given who will actually be buying their products.

@Graciebobcat

I only use Twitter for work, but I've never seen anyone, of any age, on any social media, feel like they have to openly declare their pronouns, and that includes DDs and all their friends.

I hope this gets picked up in the mass media and Oatly get absolutely roasted for it, just because it's so utterly embarrassing, ageist and patronising, regardless of the gender wokeness.

It's starting to happen on Linked In. 90-95% of people declaring them on my feed are women, handful of men.

Let's me know which wokesters to avoid

@Blakes77

Wasn't that in 1988 not the 90s Yup. Well 1988-1990 really. It was a long Summer

I'm still recovering...

I haven't quite got through TFT but their adverts on 'do you need to talk to dad about milk' showing wives and kids discussing dad's milk habit as though it's an addiction are really tone deaf and horrible. Who is doing their marketing?

Oh no. We buy loads! 🤦🏻‍♀️

@CaraDuneRedux

Hmm, who do they think pays for the Oatly on the weekly Sainsbury's order, I wonder?

15 year old Jo (pronouns xie/xem) or 49 year old Cathy (pronouns when the fuck are you going to get off your arse and bring your laundry down from your bedroom?)

Not that it matters in our house, never buy the stuff anyway.

Yeah they’re really gambling the farm on some very specific assumptions (research?$ about their market segmentation. Either that or they have intelligence that over 30s have all given up on The Guardian en masse (possible).

I hope for their sakes that they’re correct either way, cos they’ve just irritated a large number of potential customers.

PMSL. My daughter messaged me this very day to say "do you still buy newspapers, it would be interesting to know for my journalism module" (she is at Uni doing an English based degree, not sure why she hasn't noticed we don't have physical newspapers in the house when she's here, but still).

My reply was "Not really darling, no. We used to read The Guardian but I don't even read it online any more. Nor The Observer. Sad, and I sort of miss them ... but they no longer speak to me".

Email sent.

Told DH not to put the ten chocolate oatly cartons back in the online trolley when he does his final bit of our online shop as I've replaced them with about five cows milk options to try.
He said he'd gone off the taste anyway and asked why drinks companies are getting involved in social activism and was it anything to do with the wanky packaging, like innocent have so he's been brought up to speed with that malarkey, too.
If vimto start anything we're fucked though, our kids are obsessed.

Told DH not to put the ten chocolate oatly cartons back in the online trolley when he does his final bit of our online shop

Alpro soya do a good chocolate drink.

No Oatly for me anymore either. I found Moma oat barista in Sainsbury's the other day which is much nicer. The Lidl one is pish and the Asda is not much better. They both separate into teeny greasy balls in my tea. Tis hideous 🤢