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Despite creating a Super Bowl ad that was destroyed by critics, the investment by vegan dairy maker Oatly may actually have been money well spent.
The Swedish-based company is reportedly looking at a $ 10 billion valuation for an initial public offering that may take place as early as May. This is a far cry from the $ 2 billion the Wall Street Journal reported the company was worth in July.
Sources told Bloomberg about the increase in numbers and that discussions continue over the size and timing of listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Although Oatly reflected on a listing in Hong Kong, after his splash in the Super Bowl, the focus now seems to be moving on with just one listing in the United States. An Oatly spokesman declined to comment.
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Oatly’s 30-second Super Bowl ad featured the company’s CEO, Toni Peterson, playing a keyboard and singing in an oat field about the company’s milk.
“It’s like milk, but made for humans,” said Peterson, “Wow, now cow!”
According to the age of the ad, The Oatly commercial was made in 2014 and banned in Sweden after facing a lawsuit from the Swedish dairy lobby. A 15-second version of the commercial has been posted on Oatly’s YouTube channel since 2017. Variety reported that a 30-second ad for the Super Bowl LV cost about $ 5.5 million.
“No choreography, music licensing, famous actors – possibly not even a director. This year’s most grumpy ad came from Oatly, a company that is very good at making oat milk and very bad at making commercials, ”wrote the Washington Post. “The uncomfortably weird vibrations of” Napoleon Dynamite “abound.”
Justin Peters of Slate said the ad won the “What the hell was that?” award for 2021.
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“This ad smelled like the kind of inauthentic strangeness that ends up being presumptuous,” wrote Peters. “Although I like Oatly’s products, I confess that I didn’t get or didn’t like the company’s strategy of producing ads that, consciously and deliberately, choose to waste the space they bought.”
Likewise, the ad faced similar resistance on social media, with one user suggesting that the ad was “made on purpose for people to talk about it”.
Oatly, who called the reaction a ‘popular opinion’, capitalized on the moment by selling T-shirts that said “I totally hated that Oatly ad”. According to the company, the shirts have already sold out.
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However, some users came to the defense of the commercial, such as the musician QuestLove, who said that Oatly’s commercial “won” with an “inevitable song”. Other users said it was their “favorite commercial so far” and found the jingle “really cool [to be honest]. “
“Perhaps interrupting the second quarter so that the world could experience Toni’s musical styles about how oat milk is like milk, but made for humans was not the Super Bowl-like idea of all time, but, for On the other hand, our attempt to promote Toni’s singing skills to a wider audience really prompted you to visit an oat milk company’s website on the big day, “said Oatly in a statement on his website. “Total success!”
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Oatly AB was founded in the 1990s by brothers Rickard and Bjorn Oste. Using patented enzyme technology based on Swedish research at Lund University, the company turns fiber-rich oats into nutritious liquid food.
The company’s popularity comes as vegetable-based alternatives to traditional meat and dairy products paved the way for the market. Both Starbucks and Dunkin ‘announced last year that they would add oat milk to their menus. Starbucks also announced an agreement with Oatly to introduce its products in markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Taiwan and Thailand.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Oatly AB sold a $ 200 million stake in July to Blackstone Group, a private equity firm led by donor Trump Stephen Schwartzman. The investment is also reportedly supported by Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Portman, the former head of Starbucks Corp. Howard Schultz and the entertainment company founded by Jay-Z.
Oatly’s potential IPO plans come amid a similar effort by rival Chobani. The yogurt company is reportedly eyeing an initial public offering later this year that hopes to be able to value the Norwich, NY company at up to $ 7 billion to $ 10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.