We Are Q Inc.

Logorama won the 2010 Oscar for best animated short film. The French conceived and produced film is a 16 minute animated short entirely populated by trademarks as both characters and props.

The film was directed by the collective H5, comprised of Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain. It depicts events in a branded Los Angeles populated by some 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and anthropomorphic mascots. The story follows two Bibendum (Michelin tire guys) as cops who chase a terrorist, Ronald McDonald. The film ends with a zoom out from Earth to explore the branded universe.

The film is funny, witty and takes every liberty with the brands it portrays. Remarkably not a single advertiser asked to have their logo removed from the film. Could the brands have simply ignored this would-be marginal French short film that no one would see? Or, once it won the Oscar was it too late to litigate? What ever the answer, it doesn’t matter.

As a marketing and advertising professional, the film, to me, articulates a paradigm shift in brand marketing. Marketers can no longer protect how their brands are portrayed.

The 2,5000 brands in Logorama, by hook or by crook,  have no choice but to accept the customers’ commentary on the historical and emotion investment they’ve made in the brands they love and hate. In our create-it-yourself, social-media-mashup-pop universe, brand marketers are no longer in control of their brands. For good or bad the customer has appropriated the brands which permeate public space and will do with them what they please. Consumers no longer accept a top down branded message without the ability to directly comment and interact. Go forward and engage accordingly.

You can preview the short on Logorama’s website or buy it for $2 from iTunes.