Blendtec Case
INTRODUCTION
For the new media assignment our group decided to analyse a social media case. We found the Blendtec case to be extremely interesting and powerful to be shared with the rest of students. The case describes the enormous success, “Blendtec”, an American manufacturer of high performance durable blenders had with the help of Social media marketing.
BACKGROUND
The story of Blendtec, a company founded by Tom Dickson starts in 1975 in Utah, USA. Tom using a versatile vacuum cleaner motor combined it with a rotor and stator micronetic-milling chamber, which helped mill wheat quickly and efficiently. To start the business, Blendtec was provided with the start-up capital by the K-TEC Kitchen Mill. Years later as the smoothie revolution was heating up, companies turned to Blendtec to develop high performing, durable blenders for commercial use (Blendtec 2012). Today Blendtec blenders are used by restaurants, coffee shops, smoothie bars and domestic households.
Since Blendtec had very small advertising budgets in the beginning, they had to come up with special viral advertising spots that could be found on, or promoted through, social media platforms. The company’s new Marketing Director George Wright found out that CEO Tom Dickson and his R&D Team tested their products by blending up wood or other robust materials (Briggs 2009). He saw this as a great way of marketing and asked Dickson to do his unusual quality-control technique test on camera for posting the short videos online. He bought some marbles, a rake, a six-pack of soda, a fast-food value meal and golf balls, put Dickson in front of a camera, wearing a lab coat, and asked him to blend the purchases. These series of videos were introduced to the public in 2006 and are known as “Will it Blend?” (Briggs 2009).
ANALYSIS & IMPACT
The video series on YouTube was an instant success for Wright and Blendtec. In the first week of publication they had more than six million hits. Sometimes
For the new media assignment our group decided to analyse a social media case. We found the Blendtec case to be extremely interesting and powerful to be shared with the rest of students. The case describes the enormous success, “Blendtec”, an American manufacturer of high performance durable blenders had with the help of Social media marketing.
BACKGROUND
The story of Blendtec, a company founded by Tom Dickson starts in 1975 in Utah, USA. Tom using a versatile vacuum cleaner motor combined it with a rotor and stator micronetic-milling chamber, which helped mill wheat quickly and efficiently. To start the business, Blendtec was provided with the start-up capital by the K-TEC Kitchen Mill. Years later as the smoothie revolution was heating up, companies turned to Blendtec to develop high performing, durable blenders for commercial use (Blendtec 2012). Today Blendtec blenders are used by restaurants, coffee shops, smoothie bars and domestic households.
Since Blendtec had very small advertising budgets in the beginning, they had to come up with special viral advertising spots that could be found on, or promoted through, social media platforms. The company’s new Marketing Director George Wright found out that CEO Tom Dickson and his R&D Team tested their products by blending up wood or other robust materials (Briggs 2009). He saw this as a great way of marketing and asked Dickson to do his unusual quality-control technique test on camera for posting the short videos online. He bought some marbles, a rake, a six-pack of soda, a fast-food value meal and golf balls, put Dickson in front of a camera, wearing a lab coat, and asked him to blend the purchases. These series of videos were introduced to the public in 2006 and are known as “Will it Blend?” (Briggs 2009).
ANALYSIS & IMPACT
The video series on YouTube was an instant success for Wright and Blendtec. In the first week of publication they had more than six million hits. Sometimes