BITE Insight

Do you remember MTV? The channel that was made for lazy Saturday mornings, listening to your favourite new songs while also entering the worlds of the artists’ creation. For those three-or-so-minutes you were able to get a glimpse into their imagination.

This literal falling is captured in Martin Garrix’s music video for his latest single Burn Out, which also launches the partnership between the DJ and Axe, on their new platform Axe Music.

The video sees an unlucky-in-love hero walk into a laundrette late at night and catch eyes with a fellow laundry-doer. He attempts to impress her but not before spraying himself with Axe, after which they promptly fall into a weird and wonderful imaginary world inside the washing machines.

Although it follows the traditional boy-meets-girl narrative of many a music video that went before it, this campaign takes branded content one step further. It aligns the artist intimately with the brand, allowing for their messaging to become naturally intertwined. The Axe Music partnership is announced not through an ad but rather through a music video, potentially a more memorable and accessible form of content for Axe’s target, young male, audience.

As people skip ads, stream online and generally decide not to engage with content that is ‘brand heavy’, the format of a music video allows the brand to logically and succinctly reach their audience.