Advertising watchdog upholds complaints over Oatly ads for ‘misleading’ environmental claims
The advertising watchdog has upheld four complaints over an Oatly marketing campaign.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld four out of five issues raised by a campaign from the oat drink firm.
Viewers had raised concerns over two television adverts, a sponsored Facebook post, a sponsored Twitter post and two press adverts.
The adverts claimed that the dairy and meat industries emit more CO2e than “all the world’s planes, trains, cars, boats etc…combined.”
Oatly’s television adverts showed a son talking to his father about the negative impact of diary milk on the environment.
The ASA said it had received 109 complaints, including from the campaign A Greener World.
The complainants questioned Oatly’s claims over its carbon footprint.
One concerned its claims its own operations generate 73 per cent less CO2e vs. milk.
The ASA ruled the ads “must not appear again in the forms complained about.”
The firm was told to “ensure that the basis of any environmental claim was made clear.”
“We also told them to ensure they held adequate evidence to substantiate environmental claims made in their ads as they would be understood by consumers,” the ruling added.
The complaint not upheld concerned Oatly’s line that “If everyone in the world adopted a vegan diet, it would reduce food’s annual greenhouse emissions by 6.6bn metric tons (a 49 per cent reduction)”.
The ASA did not find this line to be in breach of its rules on misleading advertising, substantiation and environmental claims.
However, it did uphold four other claims concerning its statements on plant based milk’s environmental impact compared to cows’ milk.