The idea came after lengthy discussions between co-directors Jonathan Lia and Bruno Mars himself. After his last video, 24k they wanted to make something completely new where Bruno could be Bruno. Thus, they started shooting him in front of a green screen, with a slowed down track and had him singing and to choreographed moves. They quickly realized that it wasn't working and decided to shut down all the lights except one. After only two takes they realized they had what they wanted.

As mentioned earlier the idea kind of happened by a lucky coincidence. After shooting Bruno in front of a greenscreen, they quickly realized that it wasn't working. So the co-directors had the idea of shutting down all of the lights in the studio only to keep one on. Then, they slowed down the track to shoot the choreographed dance to 12 frames per second and then sped it up in post to create an interesting effect simulating a kind of pop and lock dance. They both quickly realized that they had what they wanted and went into post production where they added hand drawn animation to match the choreography used in the shoot.

The video was released on March 1st, 2017 to applaud from both press and fans alike. "That's What I Like" has in a month racked up over 200-million views on YouTube. Mars also performed "That's What I Like" during the 2017 Grammy Awards show.