Six million views! That's incredible. It may be kind of hard for a website copywriting agency to create a similarly funny video, but I'll do my best. Great post, thanks.
I'm in the natural health world, so I've seen these videos plenty of times. I use a competitor's product and recommend it... but because of the viral aspect of these videos, I get dozens of questions about the BlendTec. It's an amazing marketing job :-) One that I can only hope to emulate with my daily shows...
Blendtec was magic and is a viral phenomenon very hard to repeat. We at http://pc-doctor.com liked it so much we did our own "will it melt" video http://www.pcdoctor-community.com/blog/posts/2008/05/06/Will-it-Burn-Episode-1/ using a 3'x4' Fresnel lens. It is on youtube, but really just doesn't compare to the novelty of willitblend.com nor does it quite align with our business, so the buzz is interesting but hasn't yet affected our bottom line.
Very good....I liked it a lot. Viral marketing is a tricky thing to create, so it's great to get as much thorough info on successful attempts as possible. THanks for covering it!
Hi, The Will It Blend story is phenomenal. I'm trying to figure out how to make it work in dentistry. Perhaps a "Will It Decay?" website, where we put teeth into different liquids and see how mong they last. Hmmmm, maybe not.
Dr. Chris Bowman
Dental Insiders Alliance
www.DentalInsiders.com/blog
Fascinating. It's a classic example of subliminal marketing where the principle messages of power and durability were delivered inside the trojan horse of entertainment. The viewers bought entertainment but the subliminal message was delivered nonetheless.
Great inspirational story. This is one of those success stories that keeps you thinking. What basic clever idea can I use to promote my industry.
That's It! I wonder if Will It Blend could be used to mix decorative concrete overlays. Might solve the problem of lumps on the bottom of a bucket that mess up the mix.
For Dr. Bowman, my mom use to always tell us a story of putting teeth into various liquids when she was kindergarten teacher. The teeth were practically dissolved after 5-days in Coke. Maybe some time-elasped video would be effective.
It certainly gets the creative juices flowing.
edwin leung
June 13, 2008 05:44
Great story,thanks Rachelle!
各位中國人，希望我們之間也有這樣的一個故事！
Excellent story. I've never seen the video, nor heard of the blender, but now I'll take a look. But more importantly, the marketing behind the blender is really the story and I'm always looking for new ways of doing things.
Thanks
Yes, I have seen a couple of those will it blend videos but I didn't realize that they were actually marketing the blender... Now I know what to buy when my current blender dies :-). As far as taking the concept and using it in my line of business, no clue. Selling used mobile homes in parks and making it blend?! Thanks for stiring up my creative juices.
Actually, according to Yahoo, willitblend.com only got 26k links, last time I checked. Not too much of links for such a widely successful website - though they probably drove insane amount of traffic, all being natural and topical ones.
So I'd still focus on the ROI, not on links. Some sites have hundreds thousands of links, so what.
What an inspirational story. I'm a proud owner of a Blendtec and in a world where you can buy milk that will outlast your computer equipment, Blendtec has built a machine that will last like my grandmothers Fridgedaire. It's no wonder they have come up with a viral marketing plan that may have a lifespan of squeezing toilet paper. Genius, pure genius.....
At first when I saw the video I thought this man has gone crazy or what. But it was amusing for sure and now when I read the idea and hostory behind it, it makes a lot of sense. Good post!
Another good example of Viral marketing affecting political cappaign is the case of OBAMA Girl. http://walsiv.blogspot.com/2008/06/viral-social-networking-affecting.html
Viral marketing is an excellent tool. The tough part if finding something that will stick. Tools such as youtube, digg and myspace make viral marketing easier, however the virus is still needed.
The Will It Blend guys are the absolute kings of viral marketing, and their story is so inspiring. It's kind of like the people who invented Post-Its. The rest of us sit around scraching our heads saying, "Now if only I could come up with something like that!"
I remember the first time I heard about 'Will it Blend'. I was totally blown away.
At the time I was working for a PPC company and the account director for our retail sector was amazed that nobody was bidding on 'Will it Blend' terms (including us). We were representing a high profile electronics company and immediately set about placing ads on their terms.
Just goes to show the domino effect this kind of marketing can have.
The fact they started their own 'Will it Blend' website shows they recognise the importance of brand recognition.
That was a great story. Awesome! brand recognition strategy. We recognize this face and created a video "Mr. Crab goes to the office" (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzu8obY2Y4s) video on Youtube very recently and got some hits, though hasn't made any difference yet to the site. Check it out. We are making some more videos, will be released shortly.
I'm inspired that every so often someone clever comes up with something so simple it's genius....I guess we all like to hear about success stories....so here's a challenge. What can be done with something as basic as an arthritis treatment?
I'm inspired that every so often someone clever comes up with something so simple it's genius....I guess we all like to hear about success stories....so here's a challenge. What can be done with something as basic as an arthritis treatment?
That is a great story! Thanks for sharing it. It is always good to hear of creative and successful ad campaigns. I need to get those creative juices going for something like that. Thanks again.
Thanks for the article. I'm writing an article about the downsides to viral marketing and social networking to help people prepare for potential dangers. I will be linking to this article as a source. Thanks again!
Your article were written very well. The viral marketing is surely one of the most important factor that creates tremendous traffic to anyone's website. I agree with you about viral effect of Search Engines. They are pretty powerful advertising tools nowadays.
WOW! What a great way to convince potential customers. No doubt viral marketing is behind all this but I must say that they really do have a very very tough and long-lasting product. Hats off to Tom Dickson whose personality intills confidence in others.
Wow, only in America...or online...lol, I love it when a plan comes together, remember the A-Team? By far my favorite kind of marketing is the creative kind. Great job! I'm looking forward to blending it! - Ciro Gamino
Does anyone know if they also generated more sales? The numbers I mean, where they started and where they are now? Return on investment and so forth...
I need this since I want to use this case as a "flop" during a lecture this week.
Anyone have any pointers on where to get this kind of information?
Hitting a random home run like this makes a cool story. But its another thing entirely to try to "whip up" a viral campaign while sitting around a conference table eating doughnuts.
The emphasis on these stories tends to be on RANDOM.
The phenomenon was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Albeit with a great product and a passionate creative approach. They deserve all the kudos they get.
However, I would want to be careful about trying to come up with something outrageous to grab for the viral brass ring... it could make you look foolish. You gotta be real.
Great article and thank you for sharing. We run a website that sells dog supplies and it's a highly competitive market place! It would be great to come up with something as successful as you were able to. Great job!
Viral marketing is the way to go nowadays. Just about everything that becomes big now started with a video placed somewhere for a lot of people to see and tell everyone they know to see.
Marius on June 17 2008 had the most ridiculous comment. They (WillItBlend) only claimed to have tens of thousands of links, matching the 26K he sited. He stated many companies have over 100k, but Yahoo counts links from content ads (you can pay nothing for 100k links in a month, but they're ads, totally not relevant), plus how many are one way vs two-way (huge difference). I'll take 1000 one way links over 100k two way links (which many cheap SEMS do but add no SEO value). If you're going to criticize, find somebody doing something wrong, not one of the widely recognized best.
We've personally seen the awesome power of viral videos in our guitar lessons sites...and many times--like Will It Blend--the most surprising videos get the most hits, you just have to throw a lot out there and see what takes.
All comments
Six million views! That's incredible. It may be kind of hard for a website copywriting agency to create a similarly funny video, but I'll do my best. Great post, thanks.
Great post :-)
I'm in the natural health world, so I've seen these videos plenty of times. I use a competitor's product and recommend it... but because of the viral aspect of these videos, I get dozens of questions about the BlendTec. It's an amazing marketing job :-) One that I can only hope to emulate with my daily shows...
Live Awesome! Kevin
Blendtec was magic and is a viral phenomenon very hard to repeat. We at http://pc-doctor.com liked it so much we did our own "will it melt" video http://www.pcdoctor-community.com/blog/posts/2008/05/06/Will-it-Burn-Episode-1/ using a 3'x4' Fresnel lens. It is on youtube, but really just doesn't compare to the novelty of willitblend.com nor does it quite align with our business, so the buzz is interesting but hasn't yet affected our bottom line.
Great piece Rachelle.
Very good....I liked it a lot. Viral marketing is a tricky thing to create, so it's great to get as much thorough info on successful attempts as possible. THanks for covering it!
Hi, The Will It Blend story is phenomenal. I'm trying to figure out how to make it work in dentistry. Perhaps a "Will It Decay?" website, where we put teeth into different liquids and see how mong they last. Hmmmm, maybe not. Dr. Chris Bowman Dental Insiders Alliance www.DentalInsiders.com/blog
Fascinating. It's a classic example of subliminal marketing where the principle messages of power and durability were delivered inside the trojan horse of entertainment. The viewers bought entertainment but the subliminal message was delivered nonetheless.
Great inspirational story. This is one of those success stories that keeps you thinking. What basic clever idea can I use to promote my industry.
That's It! I wonder if Will It Blend could be used to mix decorative concrete overlays. Might solve the problem of lumps on the bottom of a bucket that mess up the mix.
Thanks for the story.
That was a great story.
For Dr. Bowman, my mom use to always tell us a story of putting teeth into various liquids when she was kindergarten teacher. The teeth were practically dissolved after 5-days in Coke. Maybe some time-elasped video would be effective.
It certainly gets the creative juices flowing.
Great story,thanks Rachelle! 各位中國人，希望我們之間也有這樣的一個故事！
Excellent story. I've never seen the video, nor heard of the blender, but now I'll take a look. But more importantly, the marketing behind the blender is really the story and I'm always looking for new ways of doing things. Thanks
Yes, I have seen a couple of those will it blend videos but I didn't realize that they were actually marketing the blender... Now I know what to buy when my current blender dies :-). As far as taking the concept and using it in my line of business, no clue. Selling used mobile homes in parks and making it blend?! Thanks for stiring up my creative juices.
Actually, according to Yahoo, willitblend.com only got 26k links, last time I checked. Not too much of links for such a widely successful website - though they probably drove insane amount of traffic, all being natural and topical ones.
So I'd still focus on the ROI, not on links. Some sites have hundreds thousands of links, so what.
It is one of those amazing things to see a viral idea grow into something huge. Even more so when it is a "simple" idea. Good work Blendtec!
What an inspirational story. I'm a proud owner of a Blendtec and in a world where you can buy milk that will outlast your computer equipment, Blendtec has built a machine that will last like my grandmothers Fridgedaire. It's no wonder they have come up with a viral marketing plan that may have a lifespan of squeezing toilet paper. Genius, pure genius.....
At first when I saw the video I thought this man has gone crazy or what. But it was amusing for sure and now when I read the idea and hostory behind it, it makes a lot of sense. Good post!
Another good example of Viral marketing affecting political cappaign is the case of OBAMA Girl. http://walsiv.blogspot.com/2008/06/viral-social-networking-affecting.html
Viral marketing is an excellent tool. The tough part if finding something that will stick. Tools such as youtube, digg and myspace make viral marketing easier, however the virus is still needed.
The Will It Blend guys are the absolute kings of viral marketing, and their story is so inspiring. It's kind of like the people who invented Post-Its. The rest of us sit around scraching our heads saying, "Now if only I could come up with something like that!"
I remember the first time I heard about 'Will it Blend'. I was totally blown away.
At the time I was working for a PPC company and the account director for our retail sector was amazed that nobody was bidding on 'Will it Blend' terms (including us). We were representing a high profile electronics company and immediately set about placing ads on their terms.
Just goes to show the domino effect this kind of marketing can have.
The fact they started their own 'Will it Blend' website shows they recognise the importance of brand recognition.
Genius.
That was a great story. Awesome! brand recognition strategy. We recognize this face and created a video "Mr. Crab goes to the office" (http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzu8obY2Y4s) video on Youtube very recently and got some hits, though hasn't made any difference yet to the site. Check it out. We are making some more videos, will be released shortly.
Great article Rachelle.
I'm inspired that every so often someone clever comes up with something so simple it's genius....I guess we all like to hear about success stories....so here's a challenge. What can be done with something as basic as an arthritis treatment?
I'm inspired that every so often someone clever comes up with something so simple it's genius....I guess we all like to hear about success stories....so here's a challenge. What can be done with something as basic as an arthritis treatment?
That is a great story! Thanks for sharing it. It is always good to hear of creative and successful ad campaigns. I need to get those creative juices going for something like that. Thanks again.
Thanks for the article. I'm writing an article about the downsides to viral marketing and social networking to help people prepare for potential dangers. I will be linking to this article as a source. Thanks again!
Your article were written very well. The viral marketing is surely one of the most important factor that creates tremendous traffic to anyone's website. I agree with you about viral effect of Search Engines. They are pretty powerful advertising tools nowadays.
WOW! What a great way to convince potential customers. No doubt viral marketing is behind all this but I must say that they really do have a very very tough and long-lasting product. Hats off to Tom Dickson whose personality intills confidence in others.
Wow, only in America...or online...lol, I love it when a plan comes together, remember the A-Team? By far my favorite kind of marketing is the creative kind. Great job! I'm looking forward to blending it! - Ciro Gamino
Does anyone know if they also generated more sales? The numbers I mean, where they started and where they are now? Return on investment and so forth...
I need this since I want to use this case as a "flop" during a lecture this week.
Anyone have any pointers on where to get this kind of information?
Fredrik: apparently, sales increased by 500%, see: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/018700.html
Hitting a random home run like this makes a cool story. But its another thing entirely to try to "whip up" a viral campaign while sitting around a conference table eating doughnuts.
The emphasis on these stories tends to be on RANDOM.
The phenomenon was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Albeit with a great product and a passionate creative approach. They deserve all the kudos they get.
However, I would want to be careful about trying to come up with something outrageous to grab for the viral brass ring... it could make you look foolish. You gotta be real.
Great article and thank you for sharing. We run a website that sells dog supplies and it's a highly competitive market place! It would be great to come up with something as successful as you were able to. Great job!
Viral marketing is the way to go nowadays. Just about everything that becomes big now started with a video placed somewhere for a lot of people to see and tell everyone they know to see.
Amy @ babygiftsandshowers.com
Marius on June 17 2008 had the most ridiculous comment. They (WillItBlend) only claimed to have tens of thousands of links, matching the 26K he sited. He stated many companies have over 100k, but Yahoo counts links from content ads (you can pay nothing for 100k links in a month, but they're ads, totally not relevant), plus how many are one way vs two-way (huge difference). I'll take 1000 one way links over 100k two way links (which many cheap SEMS do but add no SEO value). If you're going to criticize, find somebody doing something wrong, not one of the widely recognized best.
We've personally seen the awesome power of viral videos in our guitar lessons sites...and many times--like Will It Blend--the most surprising videos get the most hits, you just have to throw a lot out there and see what takes.