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Confessions of a Viral Video Superstar

Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson and marketing guru George Wright discuss the lessons of their now-legendary "Will It Blend?" marketing campaign.

There aren't many entrepreneurs who can definitively say, "That was the best $50 I ever spent." Tom Dickson can.

Dickson is the founder and CEO of Blendtec, a $40-million Orem, Utah-based company that specializes in food-processing appliances. Dickson is also the star of the ubiquitous "Will It Blend?" videos, which are already acknowledged as one of the pioneering campaigns in the nascent field of viral marketing. The campaign has brought Blendtec's all-powerful blender more than 100 million views.

Prior to the campaign, Blendtec had a miniscule marketing budget, preferring to spend money on engineering and design. The majority of sales were commercial, and Blendtec relied on demonstrations at trade shows and word-of-mouth referrals. Then George Wright, Blendtec's director of marketing and sales, spent $50 on the first five "Will It Blend?" videos. He bought a white lab coat, the URL, and a selection of items to be blended, including a garden rake, a rotisserie chicken and a Big Mac Extra Value meal.

 

With his white lab coat and safety goggles, Dickson has tapped into the silliness of old David Letterman stunts, and the low-fi direct response marketing of off-hour Ginsu Knives ads. The highly addictive clips feature Professor Dickson finding out if his blender will shred things like a Rubik's Cube, glow sticks, an iPhone, or Easy Cheese.

"Will It Blend?" debuted in October 2006 and within five days, the clips had gone viral with six million views. Dickson is now a bonafide Web star to rival Tay Zonday, "Ask A Ninja" and the LOLcats. Not bad for a 61-year-old engineer with 11 kids, 28 grandkids, 186 employees and legions of devoted fans desperate to see what he's going to chop up next. Inc.com recently spoke with Dickson and Wright about the secrets to their unlikely viral success.

Tom, tell us about your background.

Dickson: I'm a Mormon from San Francisco. I graduated from BYU in 1971 and moved back home thinking I should probably sign up for the National Guard. My degree was in manufacturing engineering and the only work experience I had was as a missionary in the Gulf States. The only job I could find was at Alza, a company founded by Alejandro Zaffaroni, one of the inventors of the birth control pill. We made the first patch and the only IUD that's been around for 35 years.

As a Mormon, did you have any qualms about working in the birth control industry?

Dickson: I did. I was married with two children, but the top scientists in the world working at Alza weren't really into kids. The health insurance policy covered two live births and unlimited abortions. Eventually, I was put on the corporate communications committee and got the policy changed to unlimited live births and two abortions. I was instrumental in setting up the factory in Mexico where we would do the testing of the Progestasert IUD. The Progestasert IUD stopped implementation in the uterine wall, so it's basically an abortive. It went against my beliefs and I wanted to focus on health and wellness so I got out of pharmaceuticals, even though it's extremely lucrative.

Where did you go next?

Dickson: I'd always been interested in breadmaking and my hobby lead me to find better ways to store grains. Typically, people were storing wheat in plastic buckets, which often came alive and would get infested with weevil. While at Alza, I started a side business, Harvest House Food & Grains, and created safer packaging. I ordered 48,000 pounds of wheat and realized there were no good cheap grinders. I made a mill with a $10 vacuum motor and realized it produced a finer grain with less starch drainage. We sold 44,000 Magic Mills in two years for people who mill their own grains like wheat, soy, or chickpeas. I eventually left California and started Blendtec in Utah. Williams-Sonoma was an early customer, and we still sell mills today. Experimenting with different ways of food processing got me into mixers and blenders. In 1995, we introduced the first home blender.

Where did "Will It Blend?" originate? I can't imagine this was the result of focus groups.

Wright: I was Blendtec's first marketing director when I came on board in January 2006. I recognized that Blendtec has amazing products, but we were vulnerable because few people knew about us. One day I walked by the lab, and Tom was testing some changes he'd made to the blender by shoving a 2x2 wood board into it. There was sawdust and wood shavings everywhere. Longtime employees were used to Tom's experiments, but I was new, so I was desensitized. I thought, This isn't normal, but it's awesome.