A Cultural Crossover, But Make It Oat

A self-initiated speculative campaign concept built from cultural memory and nostalgia, centered on a brand I love: Oatly. Its playful, self-aware tone feels more like a community than a product. I wanted to explore what that voice could look like in a setting that’s just as cultural, but very different.

Growing up between Swedish modernity and Balkan tradition has always made me notice contrasts: clean vs. cluttered, fast vs. slow, minimal branding vs. inherited habits. Coffee rituals became the clearest example: a tiny cup that turns into hours, a table that becomes a stage, lace cloths on top of things that don’t need a lace cloth, plastic chairs, the kind of hospitality where “sit down” is never just a suggestion. It’s a world built on tradition, strong opinions, and everyday chaos that somehow feels like home.

Once I started working with branding, I realized how much identity lives in those details, how a coffee table can carry as much culture as a logo. This project came from that tension: modern lifestyle branding colliding with rituals that existed long before branding was even a thing. It imagines what happens when a Swedish oat drink enters that space, not to modernize it, replace it, or fix it, just to exist inside it.

The work blends personal cultural memory with speculative imagery, creating new narratives through nostalgia, humor, algorithms, and everyday realism, with Oatly as the creative playground. The result is a cohesive set of visuals and ads designed to feel recognizably Oatly, yet grounded in Balkan everyday life.

Some visuals are literal. Others are cultural shorthand. Together, they form a cohesive concept that could live across social, print, and out-of-home. All photographic scenes were generated using AI based on my own art direction and references. The creative concept, copywriting, graphic system, posters, OOH placements, stickers, and Lookbook-style drink assets were designed and executed by me.