Greatest thing from PubCon last month? Watching a guy shove a rake handle into a blender. I mean it was awesome. The thing just turned into saw-dust. Call me a typical guy, but watching things blow up or break is just fun sometimes.
The person doing the blending of this poor helpless rake was a professional though. The man spinning the blending blades of steel was Blendtec VP of Marketing & Sales, George Wright, the man behind the creation of “Will it Blend?”
First a little background on Blendtec. Blendtec is a blender company based out of Orem, Utah that focuses on high-end blenders. One of the focal points for Blendtec blenders is their strength and durability. So think of Blendtec blenders as mean, blending machines.
Now, remember that statement I made above about enjoying this unneeded destruction of a harmless garden rake? That statement is the essence of viral marketing, and the sole reason why “Will It Blend” is a monster in the new viral video marketing scene. What George pointed out in his keynote at PubCon was that it was that same feeling that originally sparked “Will It Blend”, a site where Blendtec blends items suggested by their internet audience to demonstrate the awesome strength and durability of their Blenders.
When George started at Blendtec a few years ago, one of the things they did was to give their new VP a tour of the company. This tour included a stop in the product testing labs, which at the time was covered in saw-dust. Now like most new blender company employees George asked what was up with all the saw-dust, since woodworking isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you shop for a blender. This led to a discussion on the testing process and after hearing that the tests for the blenders included the shoving of 2×2 wood strips into these blenders George realized he wanted to see this for himself, and so would a whole bunch of other people – including me.
So with $50, a blender and a sacrificial rake, “Will it Blend” was born. From the humble rake they have gone on to blend iPhones, iPods, glow sticks, golf balls, and tons of other stuff. All this blending has grown the company too. Blendtec had a small and modest company before “Will it Blend”. After the start of the now successful viral video campaign of blending madness, sales for Blendtec blenders increased by 700%.
What a great world we live in, where we can watch a company build a name and grow a following, just by blending stuff.
Someone caught the live PubCon Keynote blending and posted it on YouTube.
As far as the hosting industry, I haven’t seen any successful video viral marketing campaign like “Will It Blend”. But we’re inspired.
John Meeks
Marketing Manager