DETROIT -- Big Sean looked tired.
You couldn't blame the young hip-hop star. He was about to perform on his third continent in the last week, and he was dealing with the jetlag of a flight from Ghana to Detroit.
He could have been forgiven for a low-energy performance. After all, with multiple Grammy nominations and platinum records, he's long past the days of putting on a big show for a crowd of just 75 kids.
He did it anyway.
From the moment he walked into the gym at the Diehl Boys and Girls Club on Detroit's West Side, he held a bunch of fidgety children spellbound while he told them that dreams really can come true.
"I'm here to tell you that you can have big houses, drive fast cars and have the prettiest girls or the finest dudes, even if you come from here," he said. "I grew up at 6 Mile and Wyoming, and my best friend was from right around the corner on Davison, so this is my neighborhood.
"You just have to be a positive person and surround yourself with good people."
Big Sean was at the Boys and Girls Club to help premiere "Together We Can," the new Pistons TV campaign that was developed by the team and FOX Sports Detroit for this season. The campaign's ads are set to Big Sean's hit "So Much More" and include iconic images of the pride of Detroiters.
More important for Tuesday's purposes, the campaign also includes scenes shot at the Boys and Girls Clubs with many of the same kids that were in the gym.
They were excited to arrive with fanfare from the Pistons drum line and squeaked when team mascot Hooper grabbed them and carried them around over his shoulder. But they were transfixed when they watched videos of the campaign and saw themselves on the screen.
That didn't mean they were ready for the surprise guest, though. The kids screamed and covered their mouths in shock when Greg Hammaren, FOX Sports Detroit's senior vice president/general manager, introduced Big Sean.
He handed out hugs and wisdom, giving them lessons that he wishes he could give his younger self, and he chatted with each kid as he posed for pictures.
"I don't know why it has always meant so much to me to give back to Detroit, but it is the most important thing I do," he said before entering the gym. "I've been to Australia, New Zealand and Africa in the last week, but now I'm home for the holidays.
"Because of FOX Sports Detroit and the Pistons and the Boys and Girls Club, I get this chance to meet these kids and talk to them and maybe help them out a little. That's why I do this."
The day the kids will never forget came at the end of a process that started with a collaboration between the University of Michigan and FOX's Creative University initiative. A group of Michigan students were tasked with designing an ad campaign for the Pistons -- not an unusual assignment for a marketing class -- but this time, their ideas didn't fade away when they finished the project.
Instead, the Creative U program took the campaign to FOX Sports Detroit and the Pistons, who tweaked it into a series of promos that will run on the network all season.
That's a thrill for the college students that have gotten to see their talents and ideas already displayed on a major stage.
"Growing up a Pistons fan, Creative University provided me with a unique opportunity to apply what I was learning in school to something I am passionate about," said Justin Kelman, who graduated from U-M's Ross School of Business after working on the project. “Something that we wanted to accomplish through this project was to mirror the Pistons state of rebuilding with the city of Detroit.
"We thought it was important to emphasize that both the team and city were in the process of rebuilding and how those similarities could engage the citizens of Detroit.”
In a normal business-school marketing class, the only reward students get for designing a well-planned campaign is another set of grades from another professor. The Creative University project changes all of that.
"Our partnership with Fox Sports and Creative U is consistent with our efforts to give students opportunities to put theories to practice and received 'real world' feedback," said Professor David Wooten. "The coolest thing about the project is the possibility that the students will actually see their ideas implemented in the marketplace."
At its heart, "Together We Can" is about the message that, working together, Detroiters can do anything, and by the time the campaign debuted, it had already proven itself true.
At the start of the process was a group of marketing students who will have a major ad campaign on their resumes before they even get their caps and gowns.
At the end, there's a bunch of kids from a tough neighborhood who learned that, by staying out of trouble, they can find themselves on TV and hanging with the hip-hop star from around the corner.
"I really believe in karma," Big Sean said. "If you do good things and surround yourself with good people, you will get good things in return.
"That's what all this is about."
