The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2023
Oatly offered dairy rivals free billboards to reveal climate numbers — none accepted
Oatly bought paired US/UK billboards showing its own climate-footprint numbers and dared dairy firms to reveal theirs on free ad space; none applied.
Oatly
What it had to solve
Oatly wanted the dairy industry to put products' climate-footprint numbers on the record, the way its own labels do. Rather than argue, it bought pairs of adjacent outdoor ads in high-traffic US and UK locations and made a public offer.
How it works
Oatly has made its own products' climate-footprint numbers part of how it communicates, and it wanted the dairy industry to do the same. The Oatly Climate Challenge turned that demand into a public, placeable dare rather than a report or an open letter.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, Oatly bought pairs of adjacent outdoor ads in high-traffic areas. One side announced Oatly's own climate footprint numbers; the other side challenged the dairy industry to show theirs. A QR code on the ads linked to a website where dairy executives could apply for the free ad space.
The terms made the challenge concrete: after vetting their applications, Oatly would pay for future ads showcasing the dairy companies' numbers proudly alongside its own. Every excuse about cost or access was removed in advance.
None of the dairy companies took the offer. The campaign is held in the D&AD awards archive under Press & Outdoor, which records no sales figures for it.
Why it lands
- Publishing Oatly's own numbers first made the demand symmetric: transparency was demonstrated, not merely preached.
- Offering free ad space removed cost and access as excuses, leaving only the numbers themselves as the reason to decline.
- Placing the dare on paired billboards in high-traffic spots made the challenge — and the industry's silence — visible to the public.
- The QR application site gave the offer a real mechanism, so the campaign was an executable challenge rather than a rhetorical one.
What it did
No dairy company took the offer, so the silence became the campaign's point. The work is held in the D&AD awards archive under Press & Outdoor, which records no sales figures.
What you can take
Give your rival a free, valuable platform to prove its case; a refusal to take it can speak louder than any claim you make yourself.
Since then
The Oatly Climate Challenge ran as a series of billboards in the US and UK pairing Oatly's climate-footprint numbers with an open challenge to the dairy industry to reveal theirs, with free ad space and paid future placements offered through a QR-linked application site. No dairy company applied, turning their non-response into the campaign's most visible result. The work is held in the D&AD awards archive under Press & Outdoor, which records no sales figures.
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