For an oat-milk brand, Oatly’s had a pretty big year. Actually, we’re pretty sure any company—oat milk or not—would say running its first Super Bowl spot and going public in 2021 would make the year one for the books.

So what’s next for the brand? Apparently, merch. Upcycled merch, that is.

The cowless wonder has dipped its toes into merch before (remember the “I totally hated that Oatly commercial” t-shirt it sold?), but this time, the brand says it’s doing it in a way that’s better for the planet…or so it says. Oatly’s executive creative director for North America Heidi Hackemer told Marketing Brew the brand hopes the upcycled merch woos its loyalists and keeps them milking oats for years to come.

The deets

All proceeds from the merch go to The Lower Eastside Girls Club, a NYC-based nonprofit benefiting young women and “gender-expansive youth” through mentorship and activities like rooftop gardening.

• That’s partly why the first course of Oatly’s upcycled-merch experiment was a rather lavish dish: a vintage-denim-jacket drop. Between October 18 and 22, the company dropped two vintage denim jackets on its site per day…at $250 a pop.
• Hackemer told us the jackets are expensive because “every single jacket is a piece of art.” Each jacket has a one-of-a-kind Oatly–branded illustration on it by a female artist.
• “Those artists are incredible, so we wanted to make sure that we were putting that value on the jackets, and also being able to divert as much money as we could to The Lower East Side Girls Club,” Hackemer continued. Oatly is paying each artist for her work.

The second course was more dollar-a-slice pizza than caviar, consisting of upcycled Oatly–branded t-shirts (supplied by and in partnership with secondhand clothing company Goodfair), which cost between $18 and $24, depending on the shirt.

But what is “sustainable,” really?

Of course, just because something appears sustainable, or is labeled as such, doesn’t always mean it is (hence, greenwashing). Marketing Brew asked Laura Burget, cofounder of Three Ships—a beauty brand started in reaction to the large amount of waste and greenwashing in the skincare space that uses upcycled ingredients—for her thoughts on Oatly’s drop.

For the jackets in particular, she said the high price tag could actually harm consumer perception of environmentally friendly fashion. “Oftentimes consumers have this misconception that shopping sustainably is going to be more expensive. Very few people can afford to spend $250 on a denim jacket. Sustainability only really works if people are able to afford it; otherwise, we’re just making them think that sustainability or green technologies or green products are more expensive and therefore inconvenient or ‘not for them,’” Burget continued.

But otherwise, Burget didn’t smell any fish in the oat milk. “I’m a huge fan of upcycling. We do a lot of upcycling of our own ingredients as well, and I think it’s a really, really important thing for brands,” she told us.

Read the full story here—and keep your peeled for more sustainability-focused stories this month.—PB

PepsiCo might need to start dropping even more $$ into Gatorade’s marketing budget. This week, its rival Coca-Cola scooped up BodyArmor for $5.6 billion, a move that’ll help Coke take on the queen bee of the sports drink world—according to Euromonitor data cited by CNBC, Gatorade holds more than two-thirds of the category’s market share in the US.

Will the sports-drink wars replace the chicken-sandwich wars? Who knows. We do know, though, that PepsiCo’s been busy marketing some of its other items as of late—and building two “digital hubs.”

• PepsiCo is promoting four of its snacks, including Ruffles and Tostitos, in an ad starring Eli Manning that’s geared toward Mexican football fans. It also released a campaign for its water bottle brand Lifewtr this week featuring Doja Cat.
• Last week, the company revealed details about hubs it’s establishing in Dallas and Barcelona. According to PepsiCo, these divisions will focus on “digital capabilities” like AI and machine learning. The Wall Street Journal said PepsiCo plans to hire hundreds of people, including marketers, to staff these hubs.

Earnings: PepsiCo’s organic revenue went up 9% in Q3, even as it grapples with supply-chain woes.

Friday read: Last month, PepsiCo’s former CEO Indra Nooyi talked to the New York Times about corporate responsibility—and the infamous Kendall Jenner ad.—MS

In October, we focused some of our coverage on corporate governance, including company boards, lobbying, and more. Here’s a refresher of our coverage, in case you missed it.

• Fossil-fuel companies spend millions on advertising, with messaging that increasingly highlights renewable energy efforts. Some marketing professionals aren’t buying it. Read about Clean Creatives, a collective of agencies and creatives that have agreed to boycott working with fossil-fuel companies.
• Brands are often eager to prove they care not just about profits, but also about having a positive impact on society. One approach has been the B Corp movement. Read this about what it takes to become a B Corp, and why brands seek out the status.
• A fractional marketing strategist, a CEO, and a chief brand officer talked to us about what it’s like to be a board member in the marketing industry. Board members can provide strategic direction and objective POVs to companies trying to find their way.
• Lobbiers gonna lobby. Companies and interest groups spend billions each year to achieve policy outcomes beneficial to them. But a recent study found that more lobbying can lead to lower customer satisfaction. The researchers also found that companies can bring the focus back to customers by using certain “marketing levers.”

+1: Brand purpose is another issue that impacts how companies might corporately govern themselves. Check out Marketing Brew’s talk about the topic with Dr. Marcus Collins, Wieden+Kennedy New York’s head of planning.—ZS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Tech: If you’re on the fence about NFTs for your brand, this piece might convince you to take the leap.

Social: The top 10 Instagram mistakes that brands make on Instagram can be avoided—here’s how.

Clicks: Website traffic suddenly dropping? Check out this guide, which explains how you can figure out what’s going on + fix the issue.

Listen up: Today’s connected consumer spends over six hours per week listening to digital audio, and as the rockstar marketer that you are, you should be capitalizing on that. StackAdapt has whipped up a Guide to Programmatic Audio Advertising—read it here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Green consumers and the sustainably curious marketers, your flight is boarding. Marketing Brew is sitting down with Delta Air Lines on November 18, at 12:00pm ET, to unpack the influence sustainable efforts have on marketing materials. Click here to sign up.*

*This event is sponsored by Morning Brew’s MB/A.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• How Apple’s iOS 14.5 hurts Facebook’s direct-to-consumer advertisers
• Snapchat adds audio from ‘The Office,’ ‘Parks and Rec,’ ‘Shrek,’ and others in deal with NBCUniversal
• A primer on Jedi Blue, the backroom deal between Facebook and Google

There are a lot of questionably named companies in the murky marketing universe. Two of these are real ad-tech companies. The rest are plant-based meat brands. Can you tell them apart? Keep scrolling for the answers.

• Tomi
• Ojah
• Kuleana
• Moloco
• THIS