Spilling the tea

Spilling the tea

What's sexier, a coconut or a soybean?

By Alex Robinson, 2nd October 2024

It's not the setup for a terrible joke, it's a question we seriously debated at Hubbub when we launched our sustainable diets campaign, Find Your Ooh Without the Moo. We wanted to make plant milk more appealing. Not just because it's good for the planet—though it is—but because it's delicious.

Eating less meat and dairy is one of the most significant ways we can reduce our impact on the environment, and a key focus of our work at Hubbub.

With the UK Climate Change Committee pushing for everyone to cut their meat and dairy consumption by 20% by 2030, plant milk is a great place to start. It's widely available, affordable – several supermarkets sell it at around £1 per litre - and doesn't compromise on flavour. Plus, we're a nation of tea and coffee lovers, which means there’s huge potential to create a cultural shift.

But could a plant milk campaign move the needle on sustainable diets?

Spilling the tea

To design a campaign that really hit the spot, we took a deep dive into the nation's hot drink habits. And we learned a few things:

• Around two thirds of people who don’t drink plant milks haven’t even tried them - creating a golden opportunity to convert plant milk newbies into devo-teas.
• When people try plant milks, they usually like them. 60% of people had a positive experience of first trying them compared to 17% who were unimpressed.
• Younger adults (aged 25-34) are most open to reducing their dairy consumption.

The biggest hurdle?

In focus groups we discovered that many feared that plant milk couldn't compete with dairy for flavour. Having not tried it, their perception was that it was ‘just a bit meh’.

So we decided to target 25-34-year-olds with a campaign that would help them find their plant milk match and show them it could be surprisingly satisfying.

Our insights led us to a creative approach that used playfulness and innuendo to capture attention and encourage a change in hot drink habits.

What did the campaign involve?

• Ads across London on billboards, the tube and train stations
• A podcast collaboration with ShxtsNGigs
• A social and digital ad campaign with comedy-led influencer collaborations
• An installation in Battersea Power Station
• A workplace engagement campaign

Why engage workplaces specifically?

Aside from the fact that where you work can have a huge positive influence on sustainability behaviours, UK workers are chugging three hot drinks a day. That’s a lot of tea and coffee, and a lot of milk.

Throughout the month, more than 2000 people turned their work break plant-based. Workplace group – who got involved by partnering with Volcano coffees to host an oat-milk taste test – managed to create some life-long converts.

A latte hurdles

It wasn't easy. We had to deep dive into the environmental impacts of plant milks in order to make sure our claims were backed up by science, and navigate the ASA’s greenwashing guidelines. And as well as negotiating some heated discussions about the sauciness of soybeans, we had to wade through the oat milk culture wars.

But we felt confident in our approach because we tested our messaging - using online tools like Loops to get quick feedback and ensure our approach resonated.

So...did people find their oooh?

Change can take time, but since the campaign launched this May, we’ve seen some positive signs:

While there's still room to grow, these numbers show that plant milk has the potential to be a powerful stepping-stone towards more sustainable diets as a whole.

If you’re curious about all the findings, check out the full report, and if you want to talk about how we can work together on sustainable diets, we're all ears.