By Arial Starks
Accelerator® Summer Business Immersion at Vanderbilt Business is a summer certificate program designed for undergraduate students and recent graduates to prepare for their careers. Over 3 weeks, participants gain hands-on consulting experience by working in teams to tackle business challenges presented by 3 different organizations. During the first week of the 2024 presentations, the students worked with energy drink brand Red Bull.
The Project: What were the students tasked with?
The goal of the project was for the students to bring awareness to Red Bull’s Jukebox event, which debuts in Nashville on October 2, 2024. Red Bull Jukebox is described as “an extraordinary concert where fans decide what songs are played from the artists’ catalog and how they are played, allowing fans to experience a show in a completely new way.”
Accelerator students were tasked with pitching creative avenues for Red Bull to raise awareness and drive ticket sales for the event to their target audience of 18-24-year-olds, including both collegiate and non-collegiate individuals. The students were asked to consider the following parameters when completing the project:
- Stay within a $10,000 budget
- Target schools including, but not limited to, Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State University, and Tennessee State University
- Fill the standing-room-only orchestra section of Ascend Amphitheater with approximately 500 college students
- Sell out the 7,000-seat Ascend Amphitheater
- Include strategy for discounted pre-sale tickets for college students ahead of general public ticket sales
- Leverage influencers, artists, and community members
- Consider “Back to College” moment as an opportunity to reach the target audience
The Presentations: What ideas did the students pitch to Red Bull?
Each group of students had 10 minutes to pitch their ideas, and in between each presentation, the Red Bull Jukebox team was allotted 2 minutes to ask any follow-up questions they had about the projects.
The students presented a variety of innovative solutions to the market challenges raised by the energy drink brand including, but not limited to, party buses, mural takeovers, college campus competitions, giant jukebox drops, extreme sports pop-ups, and even mechanical bull riding.
“Red Bull was my favorite project because it related to me and my peers so well,” one student said in a survey conducted by the Accelerator team. “There were no limits on the ideas we could come up with and overall it was a project we could all be very creative on and have fun with.”
The Winners: Which Ideas did Red Bull like most?
While the competition was stiff, ultimately, Team F consisting of Claire Humphrey, Jim Tozzi, Jake Yuskevich, Lyle Foley, Charles Crumbo, and David Bernal took home the win. The winning group pitched the idea of using aerial advertisements over college campuses to promote the Red Bull Jukebox event. The group decided to target college freshmen during move-in week by flying a plane over college campuses, featuring a giant QR code directing students to the event website.
In addition to the presentation winners, Robbi DePeri, Librarian for Business at Vanderbilt’s Walker Management Library chose the group whose project contained the best research. Team B, consisting of Peyton Hudson, Ty Cosse, Anson Anderson, Patrick Treacy, Aidan McCormack, and Nicholas Tan, earned the Research Belt for the Red Bull presentations. This group pitched the idea of having extreme sports pop-ups on college campuses featuring a half-pipe skateboard ramp designed like a jukebox.
“Through the Accelerator program, I’ve discovered more about myself and my career path than I ever imagined possible,” says Cosse. “The program staff and fellow participants have become a supportive family, guiding us as we embark on our professional journeys.”
To learn more about Accelerator Summer Business Immersion at Vanderbilt, click here.
If you want to attend Red Bull Jukebox, bring your best friends and your best boots to Ascend Amphitheater on October 2! You can buy tickets here!
