THE ULTIMATE DRIVE | CREATIVE DIRECTOR, DIRECTOR

OVERVIEW

BMW had a legacy problem and it had nothing to do with the cars. "The Ultimate Drive" had defined the brand for decades, but the culture it was speaking to had moved on. This was a multi-year initiative built to change that. Finding the new faces of ultimate and putting BMW inside the worlds already setting the tone.

Each partnership started with the same question: who actually belongs in this car and why. Ciara with a new album and a life that maps to every mode the XM has. Jay Shetty with a practice built around the same emotional intelligence we wanted the i5 to embody. Victor Cruz across multiple vehicles, his different personas mapped deliberately to each new release.

The work lived across film, social, music, and live culture, from Black History Month to Art Basel to Pride. Over 4 million organic views on Ciara's music video with Thursday Night Football placement for Victor and Telly wins for Jay. We put BMW where the culture actually lives.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Dylan Russell

AGENCY
Mediabrands Content Studio

PRODUCTION COMPANIES
Paramount, Art Jail, Synapse, Radical Media

GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Rob Hersey

CONTENT DIRECTORS
Jessica Klein, Sara Goldsman

HOW WE ROLL | CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Ciara had a new album coming, she also moves through the world exactly the way the XM does, dancing, driving, arriving. We got there early, commissioning an original track built around the car, producing the music video, and pulling up to Art Basel before anyone knew what the XM was.

When "How We Roll" dropped, BMW was part of the record. The music video hit over 4 million organic views. We built the full ecosystem around it with custom social assets, commercial content, influencer posts that kept the XM in her orbit. BMW has always had a relationship with music culture, this one just hit different.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Dylan Russell

AGENCY
Mediabrands Content Studios

PRODUCTION
Radical Media

GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Rob Hersey

CONTENT DIRECTORS
Jessica Klien, Sara Goldsman

DIRECTOR
Mia Barnes

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Jim Bouvet

PRODUCER
Susan Agostinelli

DP
Jared Fadel

EDITOR
Ally Gondeck

HOW WE ROLL | MUSIC VIDEO INTEGRATION

CHANGE YOUR MODE | CREATIVE DIRECTOR, DIRECTOR

BMW wanted the i5 to feel emotionally intelligent, not just technologically advanced. Jay Shetty already moves at that frequency. He's built an entire practice around shifting people from one state of mind to another. The i5 does the same thing, it reads you, adapts to you, moves with you.

On a virtual production stage we built custom environments that shifted with each drive mode, cameras rigged in 3D space so Jay could move authentically through each world, lighting and reflections matched to the car the way traditional influencer shoots never could. BMW hadn't done it before. The campaign ran across social and brand content, with integration into his podcast reaching over 20 million monthly listeners. It won a few Tellys too.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Dylan Russell

DIRECTORS
Dylan Russell, Zach Jopling

AGENCY
Mediabrands Content Studio

PRODUCTION
Synapse

CONTENT DIRECTORS
Jessica Klein, Sara Goldsman

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Justin Diener

PRODUCER
Michele Lawrence

DP
Zach Jopling

EDITOR | VFX
Jeremy Freedberg

NEED FOR SPEED | CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Victor Cruz contains multitudes. Super Bowl winner, youth football coach, fashion figure, entrepreneur — the man has range. We mapped each side of him to a different vehicle. The X7 leaned into his role as a father and coach. The i9 played to his life off the field, the fashion, the business, the culture and earned prime Thursday Night Football placement.

The XM brought it full circle at Thermal Club, where the car's raw power met the same moves that made him a legend. One talent, four vehicles, a campaign that grew with him.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Dylan Russell

AGENCY
Mediabrands Content Studio

PRODUCTION
The Vault

GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Rob Hersey

CONTENT DIRECTORS
Jessica Klein, Sara Goldsman

DIRECTOR
Lorenzo De Guia

PRODUCER
Megan Takahashi