Oatly
A category so new
it needed a new name.
Challenge
When Oatly entered Hong Kong, plant-based milk had a visibility problem. People would come across it, but they had no simple way to identify it, talk about it, or ask for it. Without a name, the category was hard to adopt.
Strategy
Adoption depends on recognition. Creating a way to identify and name plant based milk was essential to making the category understandable and accessible.
Creative Execution
We created a new Chinese character, combining the existing characters for "plant" and "milk" into a single word that felt intuitive and familiar. Something new that didn't feel foreign.
The character became the centrepiece of Oatly’s Hong Kong market entry strategy, appearing across out-of-home advertising, retail environments, social content, activations, and educational materials.
The rollout extended into supermarkets, where the character was adopted for shelf signage, helping create stronger visibility and recognition at the point of purchase.
Results
The campaign transformed a product launch into a broader cultural and linguistic conversation around plant-based consumption.
Results included:
Rollout across more than 850 retail locations
More than 465 media articles
Over 135 million earned impressions
Social conversation volume doubling during the campaign period
Sales increasing by 44%
Beyond commercial performance, the work helped establish a shared vocabulary for plant-based milk within the local market.