Celebrity endorsement is often viewed as one of the laziest forms of marketing. Essentially, the idea involves the hope that if a celebrity is rubbed against a product for long enough, the attributes people love about that person will be transferred to the product itself. On the other hand, experiential marketing is a method of engaging consumers with a brand, in an attempt to offer a memorable experience that they then associate with the product.

Tonight, gaming giant Electronic Arts thought they would try both.

Enter Big Boi.
He’s critically acclaimed, commercially successful yet somehow still hood.
“I keep it playa while some choose to play it safe” he lays down on ‘Shutterbugg’ and EA wants a piece of that.

To launch their latest release ‘Need For Speed; Hot Pursuit’, EA Games splurged on a promotional event at Sydney’s Hordern Pavillion & Royal Hall of Industries, headlined by the rapper – one half of genre defying Outkast – doing it for himself with one of the year’s strongest releases, debut solo album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty.  “We Flew 15 hours to be here tonight people!”, boasts the rapper. This was not some pit-stop on an Australian tour. And with over an hour of stage time, this was not some 3-song promotional performance at the Apple store.

Someone had thrown a hefty wad of cash at this, and behind the screaming front row fans, behind the glitzy models bouncing around on stage, behind the slick audiovisuals, hidden in a back row, there most likely sat a group of very nervous marketing folk. One or two of them may have even been long time Outkast fans, who lapped up old-school tracks like "Ghettomusickkk", "So Fresh So Clean" & "Ms Jackson", joining us to sing “Oooooh!” at just the right place in a moment of nostalgic crowd unison. But while the rest of us waved our metaphorical dollar-dollar bills in the air, they quite possibly passed most the night mentally evaluating whether the dollar-dollar bills spent on this elaborate event would pay off.

Let’s make believe we’re in the boardroom the day after the show, shall we?

While the intern still can’t believe Big Boi delved as deep as Outkast’s first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, the account execs are discussing sales. While tickets to the show were initially only available by redemption after purchasing the Need For Speed game, the rules then changed; simply registering your interest on the NFS site was enough to secure free tickets. 

The digital marketing coordinator defends the move, pointing out the fantastic viral impact. Facebook & Twitter lit up over the past couple of weeks with excited fans making sure all their friends knew they could score free tickets to Big Boi. But the wannabe-gangsta accountant isn’t convinced; “Dang, the Hordern was far too ambitious. I mean sheeeeeyt, it was barely 2/3 full, dawg. Did we really think we’d sell that many games, foolz? And I love the new album, but did he have to snip my new faves "Follow Us" and "Daddy Fat Sax" to pieces?”

“Yeah brew…he chopped a few trecks short aye… but he really soared through a lot of material…”, mumbles the Kiwi head of creative, eyes a little red from a long night of ‘brainstorming’. “And how about whin the beat dropped during "General Patton" aye…Man I like, had endie keds to my lift and a fefty yer old couple to my right, all going mintal”. The highly-strung market research assistant is confused – “What? Indie kids? 50 year olds? What the hell were they doing there? We were specifically targeting 18-30 year old guys, fans of hip hop, porn, gaming & exotic cars…”

Plus don’t forget pot smokers. NFS game previews shown on the night starring weed-loving Turtle from TV show Entourage set an early prelude for Big Boi’s ode to puffing away your troubles, ‘Fo Yo Sorrows’. A real missed sponsorship opportunity for Doritos.

“And I noticed some pretty young geeky looking kids” says one
“And a fair few groups of girls on a night out” says another.
“Actually, loads of girls”
“Girls?”
“Yeah… wait; did you also notice how many couples in their 30’s were there?”

Everyone bites a lip.
The room gets a little awkward as they all realise the span of Big Boi’s appeal is far broader than that of the console game.

“So…how many games have we sold again?”

They all turn to the head of sales, but she isn’t in her seat.
She’s just outside the boardroom, on top of her desk, doing that dance-with-your-hands thing that rappers do, computer speakers blaring "Shutterbugg", yelling something about it being the best track of the year.

And I’m 100% with her. Witnessing it live only helped solidify "Shutterbugg" as one of 2010’s blinding hits.

While it’s easy to bitch about artists “selling out” to brands via events like this, the NFS: Hot Pursuit Tour was a steady example of how the music and marketing industries can work together to offer fans some amazing opportunities.

Did the event nail the target market? Who knows. What has Big Boi transferred to the Need For Speed brand? Longstanding hip-hop themes of excess? Street cred? Reefer love? Who knows. An hour with Big Boi is enough to convince you that he’s an artist who, at the end of the day, is just having a good freaking time. We’ll also most likely never know if the event fulfilled its marketing expectations. But you can be certain that Big Boi, without doubt, delivered any musical ones with total conviction and a cheeky grin.

So if you’re one of the marketing peeps behind this whole thing, and you were too hung up on how many times Big Boi mentioned “EA Games” as part of his contractual obligation (Seven, I counted) to notice the vivacity, heart & sheer ecstasy emanating from the stage, then damn. Quite frankly, I’m just glad I was able to enjoy it from this side of the fence.