Edition 08: Okja (2017) unveils the dark power of brand, and what happens when it's taken too far.

Welcome to Auteur, a newsletter that dives deep into the world of film and asks: What can we, as brand builders, learn from this? Published every other week, each edition takes a film of our guest’s choosing, and extracts the creative lessons.

Film is one the richest mediums we have for understanding how narrative, aesthetics, and language can be woven together to move an audience, and this is an ambition that lies at the heart of what we do as designers, marketers, and strategists.

Thank you for joining us. Auteur is written and curated by Thursday—a strategic design studio based in the architectural city of Winchester. We work globally with the ethos that being different isn’t enough—what truly matters is being interesting. 

Okja opens with eccentric and insincere CEO, Lucy Mirando, unveiling her company’s latest innovation to a room of journalists. “Non-GMO” “backed by science” “organic” super pigs that have been developed with “love” through “nonforced, natural mating”. In 10 years’ time, she declares with corporate glee, after being nurtured by local farmers, one super pig will be crowned the winner and revealed to the world.

The absurdity of the announcement instantly drew a smirk out of me—in part from the humour, which is audacious and an assault on your senses, but mainly due to the familiarity. The keynote presentation, the buzzwords, the scientists peppered in for credibility—it felt like a parody of a startup pitch, or quarterly offsite. 

Without much warning, the film ping pongs from this exaggerated, slapstick style, to something more serious and sombre, a signature move in Bong Joon Ho’s storytelling.

This is one of the things our guest, Rachel, loved most about the film.

What unfolds is a rollercoaster of a film that ultimately examines power—who profits from it, who suffers at the hands of it, and how storytelling and brand are used to strengthen it. 

Spoilers are no more than what you’ll get in a trailer—let’s get into it.

Every great film—like every great brand—is anchored by a defining concept or conversation it can own. Here, I explore a central idea from the film, and play with how it could translate into a brand context. 

“He just let her run around.”

That’s Mija’s simple answer when asked by a panting, hungry-for-the-shot journalist how her grandfather raised the world’s most successful super pig in the plush mountains of South Korea. There was no feed plan. No growth chart. No training protocol. Just space, freedom, and companionship.

It’s a line that lands differently, especially as just moments before we were faced with a highly orchestrated corporate world where every word and move felt pre-planned.

As the film progresses, we watch a creature that was previously thriving in wildness, suffer under captivity. Whilst Okja’s giant and gentle body remains intact, the life and tenderness inside of her steadily erodes. We see this mirrored in the employees. Everyone who touches the exploitation machine of the Mirando Corporation begins to contort. They become unhinged, robotic, or vacant. 

Bong Joon Ho seems not only to be criticising methods employed by Corporate America, control and captivity, but also hinting that true success—health, strength, and even good-old-fashioned winning—is best achieved through freedom. With Okja as a vehicle, the lesson is clear: we can be wild, free and successful. 

When Okja first appears on the screen, her size, stature, and intelligence are mesmerizing. Her fatty musculature and slow, graceful gait fill the screen, while her ‘owner’ Mija is shown lovingly pulling a thorn out of her foot, napping on top of her, feeding her peaches.

It was through this nurturing—being free to be—that she became the strongest of her kind, and able to withstand the atrocities she experienced at the hands of the Mirando Corporation.

“She can be the new face of the Mirando Corporation. She’s young, she’s pretty, she’s eco-friendly. She’s a godsend.”

When Mija is flown to New York, the corporation seizes the moment—she becomes a prop for a series of carefully staged photo ops meant to imply harmony, ethics, and resolution. But behind the curtain, Okja is still suffering. The brutality continues. Everyone smiles for the camera.

What’s most chilling and close-to-reality about it all is the corporate team aren’t doing any of this consciously. They truly believe they are working for the greater good, and the cognitive dissonance is outstanding. 

It’s a sobering reminder of the power of brand and optics, and how dangerous it is in the wrong hands. Purpose-led messaging, mission statements, and photos of smiling people in the Global South all work to suppress reality. That is, until the truth starts to come out… 

“I want to buy Okja….alive.”

“Very nice. Make sure our customer and her purchase get home safely. Pleasure doing business with you.”

(Spoiler alert, I’m talking about the ending.)

Mija ends the film not by taking Mirando down—but by bartering with them. She offers a gold pig in exchange for Okja’s life. It’s not the moral win I hoped for, but it’s a quietly strategic one. She survives the system by bending to it—briefly, and on her own terms.

Thinking of the systems that brands are operating within at the moment, and it’s easy to dig your heels in. AI, the rapid trend cycle, the obsession with virality, TikTok—these are the waters we swim in, whether we like it or not. Mija ‘won’ because she used the system to her advantage, and in a way that aligned with her values.

Okja ultimately reminds us that business and brand—like any system—too often lead to exploitation and deceit. Our role, as brand builders, is to resist that reality: by being values-first, giving ourselves room to roam, and learning how to use the system without being used by it.

Thank you for reading. I’d love to hear if—and how—this made you think differently about your own approach to brand-building.

Until next time,

Shope