Interview With The Marketing Genuis Behind WillItBlend.com

A JimKukral.com blog commenter pointed me to an interview with the marketing director at Blendtech, and creator of the Willitblend.com campaign, George Wright.

Every episode of the series contains “Tom Dickson”, CEO of Blendtec, destroying an interesting house-hold item(s). Some past blended items include: video camera, tape measure, can of EZ-cheese, and glow sticks.

In their 50+ videos, Blendtec makes sure they reach people with their message while entertaining. It is hard to forget the brand or ignore it, at the same time the branding is in no way alienating.

Great interview. Bold emphasis mine.

How long has the campaign been running?
GW: The first five videos were posted on the web on November 1 2006.

How successful is the campaign?
GW: The campaign has been incredibly successful. Our main objective of this campaign was brand awareness. We wanted people to know that our product existed. Millions of people all over the world have now viewed a product demonstration of our blender.

What inspired you to create the campaign?
GW: The inspiration for this campaign actually came from actual business-related testing. I happened upon some wood shavings in our lab – and discovered that Tom Dickson, CEO of the company, would blend a 2 x 2 board as a way of verifying that the bearings, motors and blades would withstand heavy use. Not only would the blender withstand the abuse, the blender would actually blend the board. The campaign was simply an extension of actual events.

Did you think concept would take off like it has?
GW: I knew that the videos were awesome…. I believed that there would be significant interest for this type of promotion among our customers and business partners. The additional appeal to people outside of our target demographic was a wonderful bonus.

Does Tom get recognized on the street?
GW: Yes… Tom has several stories about being recognized by his fans. He was even interviewed by a National News Network and identified by them as a “Star of the Internet.”

What kind of website traffic does willitblend.com receive?
GW: Numbers have been significant. We have logged more than 870,000 hits in a day. This is even more impressive when you consider that Willitblend.com only records a portion of the traffic for the campaign. Total traffic is significantly higher.

Does the campaign have an end date?
GW: Obviously there will come a day that we will end filming new editions. We have actually taken extreme blending on the road and demonstrated these amazing feats in front of many live audiences. The concept of extreme blending will likely never go away.

How well is DVD doing?
GW: Great! We have had brisk sales on our first 50 episodes. One thing that is making the DVD popular is that it includes some out-takes and some un-released episodes. Every fan should have one!

Is there any chance of seeing Willitblend on TV?
GW: Absolutely. We have done some blending on live TV. This has mostly been associated with news related stories. We are working with several global entities on some concepts.

How much research and planning went into the campaign?
GW: Great question…. We have been very strategic in how this campaign was handled. The campaign is managed, produced and published by a small internal marketing department, we have been very deliberate about the campaign strategy. This is no accident, it is a carefully executed marketing strategy.