RIM sponsors underage drinking

Well, kinda’. 46 kids were arrested at a July 21st John Mayer concert. Accused of underage drinking, the minors were booked at a Hershey, PA jail . What’s the big deal, you might be asking? If you remember correctly, RIM is sponsoring John Mayer’s current North American tour. The Canadian handset manufacturer jumped on the Mayer bandwagon in a big way, pushing their new BlackBerry Curve handset to what they perceived as a “hip and well connected” audience. We’re still talking about the same John Mayer, right? Intentions aside, this is probably not what RIM had in mind. The BlackBerry has been associated with many things, from corporate suits to (more recently) average consumers, but attaching the ‘Berry brand to a bunch of Olde English-chugging minors is not exactly good for business, nor do we think the parents of these kids will be buying them BlackBerrys anytime soon. It’s safe to assume though, that RIM won’t pull out of the tour due to this incident, but similar things have happened in the not-too-distant past. They certainly have their PR work cut out for them at the moment. Our job to you, BGR readers: Take a shot at coming up with a slogan for RIM to combat this recent bad press. Best entry receives a case of Mad Dog 20/20.

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