Campaign: Car Sounds In Music Video for BMW

A score built entirely from the percussion and melody of BMW cars drives a digital / cinema brand campaign for Daisy Hill’s Motorline BMW by full-service Gold Coast agency Zakazukha Marketing Communications.

Brisbane composer Timothy Fairless (who also stars in the 80-second spot) scored the piece with nothing but pings and dings he recorded from BMW’s 428i coupe, 520d sedan and X5 30d SUV.

Zakazukha creative director Sam Cleveland conceived and directed the campaign’s central piece of video content, title Continue to Drive, a hybrid that incorporates short film, viral, TVC and music video tropes.

“Keeping the form of the piece loose gave Tim space to create something a lot of people will appreciate and seek out, without it feeling overly commercial,” says Cleveland.

“The campaign positions Motorline as an innovative brand that recognises and supports Queensland talent.”

The project carries the BMW brand throughout: all props and wardrobe are in the German carmakers’ brand colours and Fairless timed his music to 94BPM (beats per minute) – to match the frequency of all BMW’s indicators.

To create the spellbinding track, Fairless built a working percussion set from boot slams and indicator clicks, used electronic sounds from the dashboards for melodies and cribbed vocals from the cars’ voice recognition system.

“The music had to reflect the BMW aesthetic – which to me is ‘refined and easy on the eye’,” says Fairless.

“So I went for something balanced, crisp and precise-sounding, with a strongly defined hook – something easy to listen to.”

Cleveland says the complexity and precision of Fairless’s score presented a serious storytelling challenge in post-production.

“Tim’s soundtrack is work of the highest standard, so good in fact that I was scrambling in the edit to underline that he used no synthesisers and no instruments, just sounds from the cars,” he says.

The spot will be rolled out online ahead of a cinema advertising launch in select Brisbane markets later this year.

“We want to lead it online so that by the time it plays in the multiplex we get some people nudging their mates saying: ‘I’ve heard about this thing’,” says Cleveland.

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