The Nation's Health

What’s Oatly’s CEO doing in a field of oats with a 1980s synth?

In a one of a kind performance, multi-talented CEO Toni Petersson sings a song he wrote entirely by himself to explain exactly what Oatly is all about.

Today, Oatly has released a campaign titled 'Wow No Cow' in which they have teamed up with the legendary Forsman & Bodenfors. Oatly makes oat drinks and only drinks. They don’t know anything about almonds or soy or rice or low-fat cows. All they know is oats. How to grow them, harvest them, choose them and turn them into liquid goodness.

Toni on the song
“When they first told me they wanted me to sing a song in an oat field I seriously thought they were kidding. How could that ever work to tell our story? I didn’t originally have time to write a song so they wrote one for me and I really hated it—don’t they think I have any creative integrity? So I wrote something I felt I could put my name on and then went out in the middle of the oat field with a synth from the 80s and tried to play it.” Toni Petersson, CEO Oatly

The film titled ‘Wow No Cow’ is part of a series of films in which Toni takes Oatly’s message to a wider online audience. The films are both quirky and straightforward – like the brand itself. The series of films are created by award-winning agency Forsman & Bodenfors, who also created the legendary ‘The Epic Split’ by Volvo Trucks.

This is Tony TV
Toni TV is a series of films depicting the life and times of CEO Toni Petersson as he attempts to explain why people should try Oatly’s products. The series of films which includes more than 20 episodes at present, will be featured on Oatly’s Youtube channel.
Toni TV was recorded in and around the organic oat fields of southern Sweden where Oatly has it’s offices. In order to ensure that viewers get to meet the real Toni Petersson, much of the footage was filmed without Toni’s knowledge that we were actually filming. Also, we didn’t let Toni view any of the material until just before it was released. Did we do this to trick Toni? Not entirely. We just felt that it was important for the viewer to get an honest idea of who the real Toni is and how Oatly — behind his new, off beat, dynamic and visionary leadership — is becoming a lifestyle brand that makes nutritional products to help people find ways to upgrade their lives and the health of the planet too.

About the films
“Agianst my better judgement I agreed to be featured in a series of films. At first I was really concerned that the ideas were bad, that I was bad and that all the commercials I had ever seen featuring CEOs were really terrible. For me, it made more sense to spend time and money on developing a strong idea that would explain to viewers how everyone at Oatly goes to work everyday to improve people’s lives and the health of the planet. For some reason my creative director and agency thought I should sing this instead. I guess time will tell if I was right or if they were.” Toni Petersson, CEO Oatly

About the process of making the films
“Clients wanting to be part of the creative process, well we’ve all met them. And we work our asses off to get them to believe that their contribution is of critical nature. The only difference is that this time it ́s actually true. Oatly’s own creative director is doing all the copywriting and the copywriter (that ́s me) is doing absolutely nothing but approving his work. Well, if you’ve met Oatly’s CEO, Toni Petersson, it all makes perfect sense. You then realize that this is not just another company, not just another partnership. This is the way it should be. Always." Martin Ringqvist, Forsman & Bodenfors