I sometimes get media mail containing branded merchandise for products, events, artists, etc. Most of the time, it’s pretty crappy — some weird candy, dime-store plastic toy, or wack T-shirt, usually bundled with some shitty indie artist’s shitty album, or a pitch for some niche event in bum-fuck nowhere that I could give two shits about — but late last week, I got a package from Red Bull, a pitch for the Red Bull Big Tune beat battle. Red Bull’s got loot to spend on promotional items, they have creative marketing folks, and they have a really active events group, especially when it comes to music.
Red Bull’s Big Tune event is basically a national beat battle, with events popping off all over the country — Philly, Oakland, Houston, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, DC and Los Angeles — where budding producers and DJs go head-to-head to find out who’s got the best beats. The two top-ranked beat makers from each city will head to NYC in December for the big battle, and the winner gets a whole bunch of new studio gear and the opportunity to record with an artist of their choice at Red Bull Studios in LA (last year’s winner did some tracks with Young Buck).
The promotional merch for this event is sweeter than your usual run-of-the-mill promo garbage. The box the pitch comes in (above) is done up to look like a mixing board, and inside there’s a can of Red Bull, a couple of business cards, a one-sheet of event info, and a 4GB USB flash drive that looks like a little boombox made out of rubber. The can of Red Bull is whatever (honestly, though, I can’t drink that shit), and the business cards and the one-sheet are useful but not really that cool. The flash drive, however, is the shit. First of all, 4GB USB flash drives cost anywhere from $15 to $50, and generally speaking they’re pretty practical, so that’s a score. Secondly, this one ups the cool factor by being encased in a rubber mold of a boombox. Yeah, ultimately, it’s on some throw-away technology swag bullshit, but I’ll definitely use it…after I delete all the Red Bull Big Tune promo photos and video and PR documents from it. Thanks Red Bull. Too bad I got this package a month after the Oakland event happened. I totally would have gone. Maybe.