Will It Blend?

2006

Date: 30 October 2006 onward · Place: Orem, Utah · Figures: Tom Dickson, Blendtec founder · George Wright, marketing director · Tags: Branded Viral, YouTube Series 01. A Lab Coat And A Blender Tom Dickson, founder of the Utah blender manufacturer Blendtec, films himself in a lab coat destroying objects in his commercial-grade Total Blender. Marketing director George Wright produces the series with a 50 dollar budget. Episodes begin appearing on YouTube on 30 October 2006. Within a year the series has demolished an iPhone, a video camera, golf balls, marbles, glow sticks, and a rake handle. Blendtec consumer sales rise 700 percent in the first three years. 02. The Template For Branded Content Will It Blend? is the first sustained, episodic, native-YouTube branded series. It demonstrates that product demonstration, framed as spectacle and uploaded for free, can outperform paid television advertising on conversion metrics. Every subsequent corporate YouTube channel from Old Spice to Wendy's traces back to Dickson in goggles holding a smoking blender pitcher. Sources • KnowYourMeme, 'Will It Blend?' • Blendtec YouTube channel (willitblend.com) • Wired, 'How Blendtec Crushed It on YouTube' (15 December 2008)