BTS builds anticipation around the music video for “Normal”, one clue after another. To accompany this new title taken from Arirang, the group is banking on a guerrilla marketing campaign full of irony, which diverts the codes of scandal to better question what it means to live under the permanent gaze of the whole world.
It all started last week, when the septet replaced their Instagram profile photo with the word “LAMRON” and published an image in dark green tones, composed of photos of the members captured from life, as if on film. The visual bore the words “LAMRON: The Reel”, while each of the seven artists modified their biography to appear the same word.
It obviously didn't take long for fans to realize that “LAMRON”, read backwards, became “NORMAL”. A fairly clear clue: the song appearing on BTS's fifth studio album, Arirang, would soon be entitled to its own music video.
Since the release of the album on March 20, 2026, “Normal” has already occupied an important place in the Arirang universe, particularly because the group performed it on stage during the Arirang World Tour. But rather than resorting to the traditional series of conceptual photos or a precise video teaser, Big Hit Music chose a more artisanal, almost retro strategy to accompany the release of the clip.
The clues then continued to appear.
On July 14, fake advertising inserts were published in several American dailies, including the New York Post. In capital letters, a headline announced: “BTS MEMBERS SEEN IN TOILETS DURING MYSTERIOUS NIGHT GATHERING”, accompanied by a red sticker promising: “SHOCKING PHOTO REVEALED”.
The image showed RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook, all in suits, photographed from behind in front of a row of urinals.
X / Star News
Inside, the text took the tabloid press parody a little further: “We are unable to make further comments at this time. » Then came the central sentence: “Some might wonder if this meeting was completely normal (NORMAL). »
Finally, a final mention indicated that “more information would be revealed on July 17”, the date announced for the release of the clip.
The campaign thus functions as a particularly well-thought-out guerrilla marketing operation, which uses the vocabulary, procedures and excesses of the tabloids in order to divert the media's almost obsessive fascination with BTS.
This mechanism directly echoes the subject of “Normal”, a piece performed entirely in English and centered on the experience of a life constantly observed, commented on and dissected.
In the chorus of the explicit version, Jungkook, Jimin, Jin and V evoke a form of intoxication produced by dopamine, fantasies, fame, love and hatred, to the point of becoming impervious to everything that is projected to them. It is this permanent dizziness, this accumulation of excess and looks, that the piece ends up designating as now being “normal”.
From the first verse, Jimin also questions the way others perceive him and the colors they choose to attribute to him. Two opposing visions, like two sides of the same coin, without one or the other ever seeming to contain the whole truth. A way of staging the tension between public image and intimate identity, while allowing a glimpse of a more adult and more lucid chapter in the group's evolution.
The promotional campaign extends exactly that idea: fabricating a fake scandal in a fake tabloid to announce a real song about how chaos, exposure, and constant surveillance have come to become the norm.
The “LAMRON” process is based on the same principle: take something familiar, turn it upside down, then observe what this inversion reveals.
“Normal” will be the fifth music video from Arirang, after “Swim”, “2.0”, “Hooligan” and “Merry Go Round”. Its release is scheduled for July 17, as the false advertisement mischievously announced.
