How a blender company got a half-billion YouTube views
Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series of videos earned nearly 500 million views because the company used a social media tool after building a strategy, not as the strategy itself.
“That’s a lot of work to sell a blender,” Rance Crain, president of Crain Communications and editor-in-chief of Advertising Age, said of the series in which items such as iPods and golf balls get ground up in blenders. “Why can’t you take out an ad in the local newspaper and say, ‘Blenders for sale’ and if you want to buy a blender, there it is?”
At one time, that sort of strategy would have worked, Wright said, but everything has changed now. People skip the commercials in the TV shows they record on their DVRs.
“Advertising is the penalty that companies pay for not being remarkable,” he said. “If you’re remarkable, you end up being the story.”
When you do become the story, Wright said, it shouldn’t be an accident. If you know your brand, your audience, and your objective, it won’t be.
Know thyself
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