Confusing BMW XM Marketing Film Features Knights And 'Expressive Dance'

Although it didn’t seem possible, BMW has released a marketing film that’s weirder than its E66 7-series vs iX CES advert. That particular video featured the newer car “mocking” the older one, leaving us all thoroughly confused about what the message was supposed to be. However, that’s nothing compared to a new promotional video for the recently revealed XM concept.

It’s called ‘Knights A-coming’ and is described as “an inspiring music video combining a unique location, expressive dance and an extraordinary concept car”. ‘Inspiring’ doesn’t quite seem the right word - perhaps ‘confusing’ or ‘perplexing’ might have been better.

In the video, we see the titular knights riding horseback alongside the XM, followed by some dancing. Then some more dancing in a bright green room, and finally, one of the dancers is knighted while the XM looks on and revs aggressively.

No, we’ve no idea what any of this is supposed to mean, but given that this comes from a company responsible for other marketing weirdness including the infamous (and since deleted) “OK boomer” Tweet, we shouldn’t be surprised. What we seem to have here is a company desperately trying to reach younger buyers by ever stranger means, in the process alienating the people actually purchasing BMWs, the majority of whom are over 55.

As for the XM itself, that’s more in line with what BMW buyers want. Yes, we petrolheads would dearly love the first M-exclusive production car sine the M1 to be, well, anything apart from a large hybrid SUV with challenging styling, but it’s right up the street of the people out there happy to spend over £100k on an M product. That’s just the automotive world we live in right now.

If that’s hard to stomach, just remember - the 50th anniversary of M GmbH will also be marked by the first-ever production M3 Touring, as well as an M4 CSL. We can’t wait to see the “expressive dance” videos for those.