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Interviews: Blendtec Founder Tom Dickson Answers Your Questions
A while ago you had a chance to ask blender aficionado and internet celebrity Tom Dickson about viral marketing, and all things blended. Below you'll find his responses to your blender inquiries.
Why did you start doing the videos?
by Jim Hall
I'd like to know how you got the idea to do the "Will it blend?" videos in the first place? As mentioned in the summary, it's one of, if not the greatest viral marketing campaigns of all time. Did someone at Blendtec just suggest out of the blue "You should do videos on YouTube", or were you looking for a new advertising idea and a clever marketer had this idea?
Tom: Will it Blend? was developed accidentally by a new marketing director hired in 2006. I have always been one to try to break my blenders to find their fail points and determine how I can improve them. George, the new marketing director, discovered some of the wacky things I was doing to my blenders, including shoving 2x2s into the jars to try to break the blender. With a $50 budget George bought a Happy Meal, a rotisserie chicken, coke cans, golf balls, and a few other items, and they made 5 videos. Six days later we had six million views on YouTube. Six years, 120+ videos, almost 200 million views later, Will it Blend? has been named as the number one viral marketing campaign of all time.
which ones surprised you
by Anonymous Coward
Which things really surprised you by how well, or poorly, they blended?
Tom: Honestly, there were actually few things that surprised me because I have been blending things in my blenders for years. But there have been many really fun, and scary ones for safety reasons. That’s why we make sure to place “Do Not Try This At Home” on all of our videos.
Will It Blend
by Anonymous Coward
What product created the most noxious byproducts after being blended? Have you ever had to get medical treatment or call out a HazMat team after blending a product?
Tom: The line “Don’t breathe this” didn’t get added by happenstance. One of my first blends was glass marbles. The cloud of glass particles that it created really prompted me to say “Don’t breathe this” and it has stuck ever since. But, luckily we have never had to call the HazMat team or visit the ER after a blend.
Worst Warranty Request?
by Anonymous Coward
Did anyone blend something they really shouldn't have and then send in for a warranty repair?
Tom: We actually receive calls into our customer service department all the time from customers who have gone against our call to not try this at home. Just last week we received a call from a customer (well, a customer’s teenage son) who decided to try some “Will it Blends” while his mom was on vacation. He called in asking to receive a replacement jar before his mom returned because he knew his life was on the line after almost destroying his mom’s favorite kitchen appliance after trying to blend a crowbar. Thankfully he was not hurt, but please listen to what we say in the videos: “Don’t’ try this at home.”
Data destruction device
by iced_tea
Have you ever thought about marketing your blenders as Data Destruction devices? Blending thumb drives or Hard Disks?
Tom: We have never really put much focus on marketing these blenders other than for food consumption. Interestingly enough we have also received calls from companies that scrap hard drives and other boards for gold recovery. They have asked whether we recommend our blender for this type of service. Since we really didn’t create our warranty with this type of use in mind we have to direct them to traditional scrap methods. But, this goes to show that people and companies are looking for alternative and fun ways to run their business.
Did it work?
by MyFirstNameIsPaul
Did all those YouTube views, interviews, awards, and features result in increased profits?
Tom: At the same time that we introduced the Will it Blend? campaign we also made a big push for retail expansion as part of our marketing plan. We had been in retail for a few years at that point, but without the driving force of a professional marketing director. It is difficult to directly link sales to our Will it Blend? campaign mainly because the demographic of our WIB viewers is very different from those who actually buy our blenders. However, these 16-24 year-old male WIB viewers are great influencers to their 35-65 year-old moms and grandmas. We do know that our retail growth has been over 800% since 2006.
When the Big Appliance in the sky calls
by paiute
Will you be interred, cremated, or blended?
Tom: This isn’t the first time I have been asked this question. Honestly, it makes sense for me to be blended and that does spark some good ideas for a final “Will it Blend” episode. But in the end, my lovely wife will probably decide against blending.
Why Are Blenders Hard?
by bill_mcgonigle
I've pretty much hated every blender I've owned to date and recognize that there are only two or three blenders on the market that are actually good at their job, and they each cost as much as a new refrigerator. Clearly sticking a viscous blade on the end of a beefy motor isn't all there is to it. So, please explain to the engineers who haunt this site what the challenges are in making a good blender.
Tom: Creating solutions for ordinary and daily problems is what I love to do. That is at the root of all my inventions and the blender is no different. Add an endless desire to put big motors in little things and you have a great recipe for the best kitchen appliances on the market. With that said, there are many challenges that come with creating the most powerful and innovative blender. Some of the most interesting challenges have come in the least likely of forms, like protecting intellectual property from the imitators. When we created a new jar design to solve the problem of cavitation (our wildside jar), this patented design was soon copied by a few of our competitors after they failed to create a unique solution on their own. What I solved over a Holiday weekend couldn’t be solved by their best engineers. Business is cut throat, but in the end we were victorious in protecting our IP and were awarded $24.1 Million from one of our competitors.
What is next for blender R&D?
by Aristos Mazer
Blenders do not seem like an area of technology with a lot of room for innovation, but I've been surprised before (Sears has a "hammer research division" that is kind of amazing). What do you see as the next big thing in blending? Perhaps plans for a reassembler?
Tom: If you think the blending world is short of room for innovation you haven’t watched us too closely. Innovation is in almost every aspect of our blender, but especially in our new designs. There is no need to look further than our pre-programmed cycles and our square jar and single-blade technologies to see innovation. After all, how many home blenders do you see with these amazing innovations? But, let’s focus on our new designs for just a minute. Our new Designer Series blender for the home and our Stealth blender for commercial both have our latest technologies in their capacitive touch screens and both have super quiet designs. In fact, our Stealth has received numerous awards for being the quietest blender on the market as well as having a USB interface to quickly load new recipes for seasonal recipes. Both can be found at Blendtec.com.
by Jim Hall
I'd like to know how you got the idea to do the "Will it blend?" videos in the first place? As mentioned in the summary, it's one of, if not the greatest viral marketing campaigns of all time. Did someone at Blendtec just suggest out of the blue "You should do videos on YouTube", or were you looking for a new advertising idea and a clever marketer had this idea?
Tom: Will it Blend? was developed accidentally by a new marketing director hired in 2006. I have always been one to try to break my blenders to find their fail points and determine how I can improve them. George, the new marketing director, discovered some of the wacky things I was doing to my blenders, including shoving 2x2s into the jars to try to break the blender. With a $50 budget George bought a Happy Meal, a rotisserie chicken, coke cans, golf balls, and a few other items, and they made 5 videos. Six days later we had six million views on YouTube. Six years, 120+ videos, almost 200 million views later, Will it Blend? has been named as the number one viral marketing campaign of all time.
which ones surprised you
by Anonymous Coward
Which things really surprised you by how well, or poorly, they blended?
Tom: Honestly, there were actually few things that surprised me because I have been blending things in my blenders for years. But there have been many really fun, and scary ones for safety reasons. That’s why we make sure to place “Do Not Try This At Home” on all of our videos.
Will It Blend
by Anonymous Coward
What product created the most noxious byproducts after being blended? Have you ever had to get medical treatment or call out a HazMat team after blending a product?
Tom: The line “Don’t breathe this” didn’t get added by happenstance. One of my first blends was glass marbles. The cloud of glass particles that it created really prompted me to say “Don’t breathe this” and it has stuck ever since. But, luckily we have never had to call the HazMat team or visit the ER after a blend.
Worst Warranty Request?
by Anonymous Coward
Did anyone blend something they really shouldn't have and then send in for a warranty repair?
Tom: We actually receive calls into our customer service department all the time from customers who have gone against our call to not try this at home. Just last week we received a call from a customer (well, a customer’s teenage son) who decided to try some “Will it Blends” while his mom was on vacation. He called in asking to receive a replacement jar before his mom returned because he knew his life was on the line after almost destroying his mom’s favorite kitchen appliance after trying to blend a crowbar. Thankfully he was not hurt, but please listen to what we say in the videos: “Don’t’ try this at home.”
Data destruction device
by iced_tea
Have you ever thought about marketing your blenders as Data Destruction devices? Blending thumb drives or Hard Disks?
Tom: We have never really put much focus on marketing these blenders other than for food consumption. Interestingly enough we have also received calls from companies that scrap hard drives and other boards for gold recovery. They have asked whether we recommend our blender for this type of service. Since we really didn’t create our warranty with this type of use in mind we have to direct them to traditional scrap methods. But, this goes to show that people and companies are looking for alternative and fun ways to run their business.
Did it work?
by MyFirstNameIsPaul
Did all those YouTube views, interviews, awards, and features result in increased profits?
Tom: At the same time that we introduced the Will it Blend? campaign we also made a big push for retail expansion as part of our marketing plan. We had been in retail for a few years at that point, but without the driving force of a professional marketing director. It is difficult to directly link sales to our Will it Blend? campaign mainly because the demographic of our WIB viewers is very different from those who actually buy our blenders. However, these 16-24 year-old male WIB viewers are great influencers to their 35-65 year-old moms and grandmas. We do know that our retail growth has been over 800% since 2006.
When the Big Appliance in the sky calls
by paiute
Will you be interred, cremated, or blended?
Tom: This isn’t the first time I have been asked this question. Honestly, it makes sense for me to be blended and that does spark some good ideas for a final “Will it Blend” episode. But in the end, my lovely wife will probably decide against blending.
Why Are Blenders Hard?
by bill_mcgonigle
I've pretty much hated every blender I've owned to date and recognize that there are only two or three blenders on the market that are actually good at their job, and they each cost as much as a new refrigerator. Clearly sticking a viscous blade on the end of a beefy motor isn't all there is to it. So, please explain to the engineers who haunt this site what the challenges are in making a good blender.
Tom: Creating solutions for ordinary and daily problems is what I love to do. That is at the root of all my inventions and the blender is no different. Add an endless desire to put big motors in little things and you have a great recipe for the best kitchen appliances on the market. With that said, there are many challenges that come with creating the most powerful and innovative blender. Some of the most interesting challenges have come in the least likely of forms, like protecting intellectual property from the imitators. When we created a new jar design to solve the problem of cavitation (our wildside jar), this patented design was soon copied by a few of our competitors after they failed to create a unique solution on their own. What I solved over a Holiday weekend couldn’t be solved by their best engineers. Business is cut throat, but in the end we were victorious in protecting our IP and were awarded $24.1 Million from one of our competitors.
What is next for blender R&D?
by Aristos Mazer
Blenders do not seem like an area of technology with a lot of room for innovation, but I've been surprised before (Sears has a "hammer research division" that is kind of amazing). What do you see as the next big thing in blending? Perhaps plans for a reassembler?
Tom: If you think the blending world is short of room for innovation you haven’t watched us too closely. Innovation is in almost every aspect of our blender, but especially in our new designs. There is no need to look further than our pre-programmed cycles and our square jar and single-blade technologies to see innovation. After all, how many home blenders do you see with these amazing innovations? But, let’s focus on our new designs for just a minute. Our new Designer Series blender for the home and our Stealth blender for commercial both have our latest technologies in their capacitive touch screens and both have super quiet designs. In fact, our Stealth has received numerous awards for being the quietest blender on the market as well as having a USB interface to quickly load new recipes for seasonal recipes. Both can be found at Blendtec.com.
Your company should make a blender specifically designed to shred 3D printed objects that people will want to throw back into a filament making machine. That means a blender targeted at shredding ABS and PLA objects of various densities.
While it might be a fitting way for Tom to go, I'd hate to be the one to do that blending, talk about gory. Sounds like the chipper scene in Fargo.
which ones surprised you
by Anonymous Coward
Which things really surprised you by how well, or poorly, they blended?
Tom: Honestly, there were actually few things that surprised me because I have been blending things in my blenders for years. But there have been many really fun, and scary ones for safety reasons. That’s why we make sure to place “Do Not Try This At Home” on all of our videos.
Who. Friggin. Cares.
Way to tell me nothing. If I was a teacher and this was submitted to a free response question on a quiz, I would give an F.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
He mentions the teenage retard that tried to blend a crowbar, but what I'm interested in is.. ..Did it blend?
Patents on actual mechanical inventions his company makes and sells? That's what patents are for.
I want to use a Blendtec blender to recycle old ::Cue::Cats and Sony copy protected (rootkit) CDs. I will use the plastic to 3D print bitcoins which I will then then shred in the blender, thus destabilizing the finances of the netBSD foundation.
Another interesting set of videos is Watch it Shred: http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/
Besides ripping off other people's viral marketing, they make industrial shredders and film themselves shredding things such as car engine blocks, torpedoes, railroad ties, cars, and more
Why did this teen think beefy steel crowbar versus metal blender blades would work? Round two, titanium?
Even if it had worked, it seems like everything would have tasted a bit off after that.
If we colonize Mars, it won't be the World Wide Web anymore. UWW?
We have a Blendec. As a result of the Will It Blend? videos.
When Blendec received money from their competitor as a result of infringement of an actually innovative patent, what did they do?
They poured that money right back into customer service, by giving away (well, we paid $12 for shipping) one Wildside jar to their existing customers. Which I am now turning that goodwill into more free marketing for them.
This is brilliant on several levels.
Yes, their product is expensive. Yes, the quality is high. The value, in our house, greatly exceeds the cost. Thanks, Tom!
software is just a pile of algorithms. allowing patenting of math and logic is a very bad idea. we have copyright instead to protect specific written works of software, that's all that's needed as long as the copyright period isn't too long. 17 or 25 years is plenty.
Do people buy your products, or just watch the videos?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Just last week we received a call from a customer (well, a customer’s teenage son) who decided to try some “Will it Blends” while his mom was on vacation. He called in asking to receive a replacement jar before his mom returned because he knew his life was on the line after almost destroying his mom’s favorite kitchen appliance after trying to blend a crowbar.
The customer service replied: what are you doing, Gordon?
Any chance of WIFI or Bluetooth enabled blenders in the near future? No idea what they could be used for but everyone knows that everything is better with Bluetooth.
Plenty of software patents are on things the company makes or sells
And plenty of them are on things like "means for doing this thing" where the patent holder sat around for 10 years while everyone else did this thing, then suddenly starts suing everyone demanding money whether they even "do this thing" using his "method" because it costs around 6 figures to get to a Markman Hearing to prove you don't "do this thing" or you do it with some other "method" at which point the patent holder starts whining about Doctrine of Equivalents and running up the bill another 6 figures.
I think there is more to the demographics than he mentioned. Quite likely that younger generation will only know the Blendtec brand (versus other brands of blenders), so when they are older and equipping their own kitchens they will purchase a Blendtec, possibly most especially the ones that did not manage to convince their parents to purchase one.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
To put it bluntly, there is no hypocrisy, because you are comparing apples to oranges. To quote a relevant part of TFS:
When we created a new jar design to solve the problem of cavitation (our wildside jar), this patented design was soon copied by a few of our competitors after they failed to create a unique solution on their own.
See, the patent here is on the a particular method of solving a particular problem. Solve the problem in a different way, and there is no infringement. And that is how it should be.
But in the world of software patents, they are granted on the concept of solving a particular problem. Meaning it doesn't matter if you come up with a different method of, say, implementing a shopping cart for a website. The concept of having a shopping cart is what was patented.
I've always been impressed with the "Will It Blend" videos.
My mother has a blender that we never managed to destroy (I think it was Oster ?) over the or probably 30 years now she has used it. But I have to wonder why there haven't been any improvements in safety.
Like, containers are made of glass or polycarbonite, but there's still a lack of ways of being able to "push" the material in the blender down (I sure hope nobody has ever been stupid enough to stick their fingers in)
What, no Columbine reference? I'm disappointed.
Me, I want a Beowulf cluster of blenders, naked and petrified.
Theoretically patents are supposed to provide an incentive for people to publish the design of capital intensive inventions.
His example was that he designed something overnight which others stole. That may be unfair (in a kindergarten "I did that first" kind of way), but it's hardly a reason to support a systematic, government imposed restraint on freedom for the benefit of a monopolist.
Generally speaking, the theoretical foundations for patents are unsound. The actual political support comes from people's childish sense of fairness, which in this case everybody assumes is okay. It's like somebody who thought up a great name for their first born and are pissed that a neighbor also took it. How unfair! I know, let's pass legislation to fix this injustice!