The blender. A pretty simple thing really. But unless you needed to buy one would you really find yourself googling a blender, though? A random survey of friends (in my head) all say “meh, not really.” You know it, I know it and most of all, the companies that make blenders know it too. But one clever blender company employee, George Wright of Blentec, had an idea to turn the psychology of the internet to their advantage. George knew that with a well-conceived viral video, a dash of humor and a coolness-factor you can get people to watch almost anything, even your company’s blender. And thus the Will It Blend viral video series was born. There’s no better way for me to describe it than to show you for yourself.
I give you Will It Blend’s iPhone episode (much to Kevin King’s horror):
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One of the greatest, yet oft overlooked, innovations of the wildly popular YouTube website is the ability to embed its videos on other sites. In one sweeping move, YouTube made it possible for any website operator to easily host high quality video streams on their web pages.
Prior to YouTube, if a client wanted video we had to get a digital copy from the client, select which format would be best for the client’s audience, rip the video to that format and host the video file at a significant expense. And if the client wanted a cheap solution, well, they just didn’t have one. Now, if a client wants a cheap and easy video solution we just create a YouTube account for them, upload it and post. Simple.
But there is a catch. Once the video runs the viewer sees thumbnails of “related” videos, enticing them to visit the source of this video extravaganza - YouTube.com. And now YouTube (or shall we really say, Google, which purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006), is trying to drive this cross-over marketing strategy even further. All embedded YouTube clips now automatically include a video search bar. Read More
