- Copywork365
- Posts
- 14-MAR-2024 | Excerpt from Oatly’s “Dad of a Teenager” Ad by Ida Backman
14-MAR-2024 | Excerpt from Oatly’s “Dad of a Teenager” Ad by Ida Backman
Dan Bogachek
March 14, 2024
Excerpt from Oatly’s “Dad of a Teenager” Ad by Ida Backman
Often see short, incomplete sentences in ad copy.
But here, we see a beautifully executed sleight of hand in a run-on sentence.
If you are the dad of a teenager, read this.
Being a dad isn’t easy, especially if you have a teenager roaming the house. But guess what, being a teenager isn’t so easy either. They have grand ideas and naïve opinions bouncing around their heads and on top of having all that pressure to change the world, suddenly their hair is pink and next thing you know, they’re vegan — which, like it or not, means you’re pretty much vegan too, as your teen takes control of the fridge, forwards you endless articles about CO2 emissions and reminds you at every turn that everything you grew up eating is actually bad and will be the downfall of us all.
So yeah, you’re not exactly thrilled.
The premise: “being a teenager isn’t so easy either.”
As expected, the next sentence begins from the teen’s point of view. But by the end — somehow — it’s turned into a list of grievances from the dad’s perspective.
And the reader is who? Yes, exactly. Instant empathy.
The transition is seamless. The first “you” comes before the dash with “next thing you know, they’re vegan”. Then the dash. Then after that it’s all about “you”. That first “you” primes the switch so it feels natural.
Subtle.
