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14-MAR-2025 | Excerpt from Oatly’s “Dad of a Teenager” Ad by Ida Backman

Author

Dan Bogachek
March 14, 2025

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].

Excerpt from Oatly’s “Dad of a Teenager” Ad by Ida Backman

We often see short, incomplete sentences in ad copy.
But here: a beautifully executed sleight of hand packaged inside 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.