Lessons from George Wright - Blendtec VP of Marketing

Today’s opening keynote was from George Wright.  This guy is basically a celebrity in this world of New World Media.  He saw an opportunity to do something fun and post it on the Internet. 

Since then, the “Will it Blend” series has gone absolutely viral and has become the ultimate success story for New Media and Internet Marketing.

Below were some of his comments..

“Will it Blend” is basically a branding campaign.  Blending an iPhone was the most popular video.  As of right now, it has 5.2 million views in one year on YouTube alone.

Blendtec is located in Utah.  They create high-performance blending and dispensing equipment for restaurants, etc.  Their good quality products are used in coffee shops and other commercial locations.

Their cornerstone product is the Total Blender.  It is a comercial grade home product but had weak branding.  Weak brand meant weak sales.  So they needed a “big idea” to get it more attention.

One day, George was walking through the “demo room”.  He had only worked there a couple months and found wood chips.  The CEO had put a 2 x 4 into the blender to see how strong it is.  Everyone in the company thought this was normal.  LESSON:  The next big video might be right under your nose.  Keep an eye out for it.

What happened next?  It started with $50.  George bought a lab coat, six-pack of coke, a rake, and a domain name.  He got with the CEO and recorded him blending unusual things and posted the videos online.

The resulting media value is estimated at $40 million.  His marketing department now generates revenue.  (Amazing!)

Key Components

• ENTERTAINING: Their videos are engaging and fun.
• DEMO:  It demonstrates the product in each video.
• OWNERSHIP:  It is created and branded by Blendtec.
• REAL:  This is based on real people, real situations.
• INTERACTIVITY:  They take comments and suggestions.
  (Note:  Originally, the suggestions went to his phone.  It broke because it vibrated so much.)

Results

• YouTube has 58 million views.
• Total Will it Blend views are 101 million.
• They have 150,000 subscribers.
• Sales have increased 7 times over since the campaign.
• The sales has grown in commercial products as well.
• Brand awareness has grown.
• Traditional media picks up on it with very little effort.
  (National TV, local media, blogs, Newspaper, you name it.)

They now use phrases that allow them to rank on Google for popular terms (Google “chuck norris” and you will get their video.)

NOTE:  Small companies can have a BIG online presence.

Advertising is now content.  It needs to be compelling.

To end the show, he blended a rake and a cell phone from someone in the audience.  Pretty cool.

(Extra comment worth noting:  use Revver to distribute videos.  It pays.)

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