Blendtec case study (Will It Blend) - How one company used video marketing to increase sales by 700%

1. BLENDTEC C ASE STUDY
TOM DICKSON, FOUNDER OF
BLENDTEC, ABOUT TO BLEND A
BRAND NEW IPAD.
How one company used video marketing to increase sales by 700%
Blendtec is famous for its marketing campaign known as ‘Will it Blend’. This campaign became a viral marketing
success very quickly and we will take a look to see just how this company became so successful by using video
marketing techniques.
The concept of the Will it Blend campaign was to see if the company’s home and professional blenders could
indeed blend anything. All kinds of things were put to the test including the famous iphones, marbles and
remotes.
Blendtec made use of Video Marketing to promote their blenders. They simply took everyday household items to
see if they would blend and if the blender would stand up to the challenge. The items were divided into two
categories:
• Try this at home
• Don’t try this at home
In one day of releasing their first video on their own site they received 23,000 hits. When these videos were
placed onto YouTube the marketing explosion went wild. The company’s ‘golf ball smoothie’ video received 1.7
million views alone.
The increased traffic from the YouTube videos had their website jump 108,000 Alexa spots in 3 months!

2. Why This Campaign was Successful
The main reason why this video marketing campaign was so successful was that it gave Blendtec a face! The
public can really identify with this and blending household products is a novel idea. Haven’t you ever gotten mad
with something and wished that you could crush it? Now you can just by watching a video!
The main reasons why this campaign works are:
1. The CEO Tom Dickson is a funny and charming guy who people can relate to.
2. The videos are fun to watch – wouldn’t you just love to destroy some of those items?
3. Real items are blended that you have at home yourself.
4. The videos are incorporated into all of Blendtec’s marketing efforts.
5. You suggest things to blend and Dickson will blend them – shows they are listening to their audience.
6. A great blender that obviously works and so it should with a price tag of $400.
7. The product works, if your product sucks so do you!
Before Blendtec
Before the ‘Will it Blend’ campaign Blendtec did not have a face, they were just a small company that
manufactured a $400 blender. The company had products that were good but NOT a good brand. The ultimate
result of this was poor sales.
George Wright, the CMO of Blendtec, is the brain behind this campaign. One day he was walking around the
company and saw Tom Dickson the CEO testing the blender by blending a 2 x 4. All the employees of Blendtec
just saw this extreme blending as a normal process and thought nothing of it. Tom was always testing the
blenders by blending up a variety of everyday products.
George was smart enough to recognize the potential of this and he created the ‘Will it Blend’ campaign. All he
did was show the public what the company was doing to test their products.
The video campaign was created around the Total Blender which is a commercial grade home blender.

3. How ‘Will it Blend’ Came to Life
The Blendtec story started back in Utah in November of 2006. Their goal was to increase their brand awareness
for what was essentially an unknown company. They literally had a budget of $50.
George Wright used this initial $50 and went out and purchased white lab coats, marbles, a garden rake, some
Coca-Cola, a rotisserie chicken and a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal. They also spend money on the domain name
will it blend.
The CEO of Blendtec, Tom Dickson wore the lab coat and blended up these items in the company’s lunch room.
The lunch room became a cross between an infomercial and a game show set.
The concept was to make social media fun, make a video that people enjoyed watching and that got people
talking.
The videos were made available online on the Blendtec website. Blendtec employees also reached out to their
friends, family and associates and helped to spread the word.
These videos were then put on Blendtec’s website and YouTube and were viewed over six million times within
five days of being released. Since then the videos have been viewed over 100 million times! This video campaign is
now reaching its fourth year and has increased retails sales for Blendtec by over 700%!
In addition to the video campaign Blendtec has their own website which is dedicated to the ‘Will it Blend’
theme. They have their own YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter page and a company website. With the
popularity of social sites it is important for a company to have a social face.
Blendtec quickly became a marketing phenomenon which went viral. These videos have also been responsible for
creating $50,000 + in ad revenue. Blendtec took advantage of the popularity of their videos by compiling them
onto a DVD and selling them. These DVD’s included additional footage such as behind the scenes and outtake
footage.
Blendtec basically took advantage of one social site YouTube and started demonstrating their products. It was fun
for the company to do this and the public connects because they can go out and buy the exact same blender.
When Blendtec visits local trade shows people still come up and request ‘live’ demonstrations. These demos
attract huge crowds with people asking for autographs!

4. When making content for YouTube you want to provide
entertaining and made people wonder what was going to
good content that people will want to watch. If your
be blended next. The video is a demonstration of how
content is good people will automatically watch.
the product worked. Each video branded Blendtec. The
videos were done by real people and involved real life
YouTube marketing is done for free and saves a company
from having to buy advertising space. Fantastic content
is all that you need.
When you upload a video you can rely on friends,
employees and business associates to help you promote
you. When you think about it this is going to have a
whole new shift in marketing for all companies.
products. The company is open to comments and
suggestions by anyone.
Results
People now know who Blendtec is they have built brand
awareness for both their retail and commercial blenders.
This increase has grown significantly.
It is the 34th most subscribed channel of all time on
YouTube.
Blendtec is classified a small company. They have
approximately 180 employees and are a manufacturing
company and not a marketing company. This small
company did not have the budget to hire an ad agency.
Instead they had to find a different marketing method
and one that helped them brand themselves too.
MEDIA COVERAGE
• TODAY SHOW
Remember people are gathering information in different
• NEWS SHOWS
methods and with various approaches. So you must
• DISCOVERY CHANNEL
tailor your company to meet these requirements.
KEY POINTS
• Asking for suggestions of what to blend – this
showed that the company was listening to their
subscribers.
• Making videos of these requests – then those who
requested the video became a form of branding
themselves. They would forward the link to the
video to friends, family and other business
associates.
• Be honest – one time the wrong magnets were
blended and somebody pointed this out to
Blendtec. They agreed that they had made a mistake
and changed the video.
Each video in the Blendtec had certain key elements
which made them fun to watch. The videos were
• FOOD NETWORK
• INTERNET RETAILER
MAGAZINE
• BUSINESS WEEK
• FORBES

5. CURRENT
STATS FOR
YOUTUBE AS
OF JULY 2011
Channel Views:
6,978,162
Total Upload Views:
167,331,498
Subscribers:
403, 890
TOM DICKSON
BLENDING AN IPHONE
IS THE MOST POPULAR
VIDEO IN THE WILL IT
BLEND SERIES.
The most popular video from this series is the Blending an Iphone Video. To date it has received 5.2 million views
just on YouTube alone. The blended iphone was put up for sale on eBay and raised $1,000 with this money being
donated to a local children’s hospital.
Sales have increased for all their commercial products as well. With many restaurants, hotels and coffee shops
now using their products.
Total Views for ‘Will it Blend’ are 101 million and increasing.
Blendtec also has videos that show how the blenders work and feature making things like Salsa and peanut
butter. These videos have also helped increased sales by showing the customer how this blender is something
that they need in their kitchen. They can be viewed on the Blendtec Recipe Videos channel.