Oatly Has A Website Debunking And Addressing Its Boycotts And Criticisms
The relationship between a business and its customer base can range from loyal and loving to crazy and contentious. Customers can be fickle, and understandably so, there’s no shortage of needs to fulfill. Generally when there’s an uproar, a brand quickly responds with an apologetic statement in hopes of stomping out the smoke. If things escalate, lowly rumbles can turn into boisterous boycotts.
Popular alternative milk brand Oatly has decided to take another, surprisingly direct, approach to addressing criticisms. They’ve created a website called “F*ck! Oatly” that’s specifically dedicated to helping their customers have a better understanding of the issues the company faces. Like some form of evolved transparency, it’s as if Oatly heard the concerns, and decided to 1-up them in spectacular fashion. Simply put, it’s genius.
It’s unheard of for a major brand to oatmilk a situation in such a clever way. To call it brave is putting it mildly, tongue-in-cheekiness aside. The F*ck! Oatly site forces the brand to actually fix internal issues. I think sometimes we can forget that, even businesses that have the best intentions can muck it up every now and again.
From Glebe-gate, the outrage over Oatly’s lawsuit against the makers of PureOaty, to Black Stoned!, when thousands curiously boycotted Oatly for adding a new investor, there’s a long list of incidents to talk about. The website is designed timeline-style, making it easy to keep track of and update as more scandals hit the newswires.
That said, F*ck! Oatly! appears to be here to stay, and serves as a profanity-laced counterpart to their main Oatly website. Whether you stand with Oatly or against, one thing you can’t say is that they don’t care about their customers.