Why is tennis superstar Serena Williams being bombarded with microphones fired from confetti cannons? Allow us to explain…

Mic Drop | 2025 Lincoln Navigator | Lincoln - YouTube

Watch On

You’ve got to hand it to those advertising execs. When they were asked (presumably) by Lincoln to create the ‘ultimate mic drop moment’ to promote the new Lincoln Navigator SUV, they went very big and very literal.

The result is a suitably expensive looking ad that stars tennis legend Serena Williams and features what at first glance appear to be hundreds of microphones falling from the sky.

Now, as anyone who’s accidentally hit themselves in the face with a mic after misjudging a stand move on stage, these things are heavy enough to do a fair bit of damage, so what’s going on?

While you might suspect that CGI is responsible - and it may be, at least in part - it transpires that most of the mics you see being dropped on the street are made of rubber (or another similar material), as you can clearly see them bouncing off the floor.

They must be pretty light, too, as a brief behind-the-scenes clip shows them being fired from confetti cannons and being dropped from plastic crates.

Mic Drop: Behind the scenes | Lincoln - YouTube

Watch On

Which isn’t to say that some mics can’t survive this kind of abuse. Back in 2007, Swedish magazine Studio took a legendarily durable Shure SM58 and used it as a hammer, dropped it on the floor, froze it, submerged it in water and - as Serena does at the end of the Lincoln ad - drove over with a car. And it still worked.

That wasn’t the end of it, though: they went on to bury it in the ground for a year to endure “rain, snow, freezing temperatures and a bunch of nasty micro organisms.” And guess that? It still worked when they dug it up.

As genuine mic drop moments go, that’s pretty impressive.

Williams, of course, also had a real-life mic drop moment of her own earlier this year when she made a surprise cameo appearance during Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Halftime show.