An unforgettable case: Blendtec

My husband told me I had to watch this blender video on YouTube, I instantly thought he was mad. Then he said to me I should look at it as a marketer. So I said fine and watched it. I was fascinated by the video immediately. By chance, we watched the same video in class a week later.

Blendtec is considered a small company in the US. They produce commercial blenders that typically sell for over $400 each. Blendtec was virtually an unknown company, until the head of marketing found the potential of the blending exercise that Tom Dickson did regularly. With a next to nothing budget, the head of marketing started to produce a video called "Will it blend?" and posted it on their own website. The video became an online sensation immediately. Many more videos have been produced since then, and the golf ball video has attracted over 1.7 million views alone.

I love the idea surrounding Blendtec. First of all it is about the core of the company - blending. They make the power of the machine tangible by blending crazy stuff like iPad. The idea of dividing the videos into "Don't try this at home" and "Try this at home" is smart. It allows viewers to choose their interest whether they want to watch blending an iPhone or blending an apple. The length of the video is appropriate too, always under two minutes. I also think the strong visual allows Blendtec to appeal to people around the world, as you really do not need to speak any English in order to understand what is going on.

Blendtec now has social media presence on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ as well as YouTube. Their business result has improved by more than 700 percent. The fact that they do not have a big budget has forced them to be creative, but they have not become creative for the sake of it. They have really touched the core of their company (the blending power), combined the charm of Tom (with his outfit), and the blending exercise of unusual items such as a new Samsung phone. To me, it is a PR case that I will never forget, nor the noise that the blender makes when it blends an iPhone 5!