Key Takeaways from Oatly’s Creative Revolution
When new creative employees join Oatly, their onboarding begins with a striking instruction: “Unlearn everything you know about marketing.” This bold approach, championed by Oatly’s creative director Michael Lee, is central to fostering a truly distinctive brand voice. Unlike most companies bound by rigid guidelines on decision-making, team structure, and brand identity, Oatly deliberately avoids such constraints to maintain fresh and authentic communication.
One significant departure from the norm is Oatly’s rejection of a traditional “brand book.” While most large companies rely on detailed style guides to ensure consistency across all consumer touchpoints, Oatly chooses freedom over rigidity. Lee explains, “Whenever we work with a partner, they’re always asking us about our brand book. And we don’t have one because as soon as you do one, you feel like you have to stick to it, and we’d rather have the freedom to just do something completely different if we felt like it.”
This unique approach has been key to Oatly’s identity as a global provocateur known for its playful packaging and relatable, human tone. By empowering their creative team with autonomy and removing layers of approval, Oatly nurtures innovation and risk-taking that many large companies struggle to maintain.
The Origins of Oatly’s Creative Approach
Founded in Sweden in 1994, Oatly started as a straightforward oat-based alternative to dairy products, with branding that was notably quiet and conventional. This changed dramatically in 2012 when Toni Petersson took over as CEO. Alongside John Schoolcraft, who joined as chief creative officer, they revolutionized the company’s marketing by dismantling the traditional marketing department and centering creatives at the heart of the business.
The creative team, humorously named the Department of Mind Control, was given unprecedented freedom: they wrote their own briefs, set their own strategies, and executed their own work. Even after Schoolcraft’s departure in 2025, this structure remains intact.
Michael Lee, who became creative director in 2017—the same year Oatly entered the U.S. market—emphasizes the rarity and importance of this setup. “No one really can veto what we’re doing,” Lee says. “It’s not like we’re presenting to any marketing director or sales guys.” This direct creative ownership removes the usual dilution of ideas caused by multiple approval layers, allowing for a brand voice that is both sharp and authentic.
However, with this freedom comes responsibility. “When things go well, great. But you also have to take it in the chin when things don’t go well,” Lee reflects. “Then you must have the wherewithal and courage to continue being at that edge.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Oatly
A Brand Voice is a Feeling
Oatly’s unorthodox corporate structure has enabled the brand to cultivate a voice that is distinctively human, witty, and often provocatively playful. This voice is embodied in everything from quirky packaging choices to bold marketing campaigns that challenge industry norms.
- For instance, the brand name on the carton is styled as “OAT-LY” with a hyphen, simply because “it looked cool.”
- The sides of the oat milk cartons feature dense, self-referential, and ever-changing text, such as one version that started with: “Before we wrote this sentence, there was a lot of empty space on the side of this package and we didn’t know what to do with it…”
- Marketing materials often carry provocative messages, including billboards that read, “Why do giant oat-milk ads have to ruin cool neighborhoods?” or “Maybe a social media celebrity will take a photo of this poster and you will see it on Instagram and like it way more than you do right now.”
- Oatly once described oat milk as “like milk but made for humans,” a statement that spurred a lawsuit from Sweden’s dairy lobby—an incident Oatly cleverly leveraged for public attention and sympathy.
Despite this clearly defined personality, Lee admits that defining exactly what is “on brand” for Oatly is elusive. “There is an Oatly idea, and there is… that is not an Oatly idea,” he says. “How do you know? I don’t know. It’s just you develop a feeling. You develop this sense for what feels Oatly and what doesn’t feel Oatly, and it’s hard to wrap words around it.”
This fluidity highlights that a genuine brand voice cannot be reduced to a static checklist. It must evolve naturally over time. Lee notes the difficulty of achieving this within corporate environments where “company speak” often replaces natural human communication.
In many organizations, brand leaders become gatekeepers who enforce safe guidelines to prevent “bad ideas.” Lee advocates a different approach: fostering a shared instinct among the team to recognize authentic, impactful ideas and collectively discard those that are safe but uninspired. This method encourages creativity while maintaining brand integrity.
Courage Gets Harder As You Scale
Many startup founders envy the marketing budgets of large corporations, assuming greater resources automatically translate into bolder campaigns. Michael Lee offers a counterpoint: smaller companies have an inherent advantage in creative risk-taking. “It is much harder to be disruptive and courageous with your brand at the $100 million level than it is at the $10 million level,” he explains. “That, I think, is the most difficult challenge — to maintain that edge and continue to be disruptive.”
As companies grow, campaigns undergo more scrutiny, involve more internal stakeholders, and face increased pressure to protect existing brand equity. This often results in brands softening their edges and adopting safer, more conventional messaging.
To combat this, Lee stresses the importance of embedding creativity into the company’s structure. Success requires a top-down commitment to support creative teams, ensuring they have the freedom and resources to take risks.
Oatly’s model exemplifies this philosophy. Without a brand book, the creative team must continually shape and refine the brand voice, shouldering responsibility and accountability for their work. Removing layers of approval reinforces this obligation, and telling new team members to “forget everything you know about marketing” allows fresh perspectives to flourish.
Oatly’s experience offers valuable lessons for brands aspiring to build authentic, resilient, and courageous identities in a competitive marketplace.
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