What's the Biggest Online Video Success?

Yesterday Journalist Daisy Whitney asked her Twitter followers, "What do you think is the best example of a business, brand or marketer that used web video to great success to grow the business?"

I replied, "Will It Blend."

Will It Blend? is the best example of how a small company without an ad agency can have an impact on brand awareness and on their bottom line.

I've blogged about Will It Bled before but I think it merits repeating.

Will It Blend is a great model for content creators to examine.

Blendtech makes great blenders. They create online videos that showcases how strong their blenders are. People watch their Will It Blend videos and Blendtech sells more blenders. Keep in mind, it wouldn't work if Blendtech made crappy blenders or if their videos were not fun to watch.

For more on the Will It Blend story you should attend the The New Media Expo where you will get the whole story about Will It Blend.

"That's all nice for Blendtech Tim but I don't make high quality blenders. I just make videos."

Well, imagine if you had a DVD of your video content and you did an online video that promoted that DVD? Now I'm not saying to drop it in a blender.

Try this on for size, What if I made a DVD and a Pay Digital Download called French Maid TV's Official Guide to Lingerie Vol. 1 ? Then I created a French Maid TV episode called How To Buy Lingerie and had the episode be sponsored by French Maid TV's Official Guide to Lingerie Vol. 1?

Could I sell more copies of the DVD and Digital download then Will It Blend?

What if I also created a live show that could be done on a stage where the French Maids would come out and do a live performance of How To Buy Lingerie?

OK one more: What if I got the French Maids to do a live performance of How To Buy Lingerie on say Late Night TV during SWEEPS in November just before the Holidays?

Does that sound like something you think I could find a few investors to invest in?

How To Turn Your Marketing Depertment Into a Profit Center

Today I'm at Executing Social Media Conference and I'm really enjoying George Wright's presentation about Blendtec's Social Media Marketing and how it has turned Blendtec's marketing department into a profit center.

Described as the “The best viral marketing campaign ever,” George Wright’s Will it Blend? viral marketing campaign has changed the face and the future of online marketing. It's been seen by millions on Youtube, Revver,programs like the Today Show and the Tonight Show and as reported by the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Forbes, Will it Blend? has delivered a 500 percent increase in sales for a small blender company while delivering unprecedented awareness for a company with an initial investment of $50. George has a proven track record of delivering strategic thinking, brand awareness and cutting-edge marketing and advertising strategy to local and international corporations to drive strategic, sustainable growth. These successful strategies and tactics can be adapted and implemented by any company and do not require a large investment. During his career, George has produced award-winning campaigns and is the recipient of multiple awards, including the .net Award for the best viral marketing site, 2006 Clio Award finalist, YouTube Awards short list, PRSA’s Silver Anvil, IABC’s Golden Spike Award, and 2007 Best of Broadband.

Some of George's points about what you need to be successful in your social media is that your social media should be entertainment. It shouldn't take people away from what they want to watch it should be what they want to watch.

Your social media marketing should demonstrate a real product sponsored by real manufacturer and be based on real people and have interactivity with comments suggestions on what your audiences wants. It should also have a simple user subscription

According to George there are some risks in using social media. You do surrender control and leave yourself open to public scrutiny of your content. The trick is to tell the truth and your audience will stick up for you.

George says that it all started out when he first started working at Blendtec and stumbled the companies CEO Tom Dickerson who was shoving a 2x4 into a blender to test out some new ball bearings. George grabbed a video camera and spent $50 on a few other products and the rest is history.

Blendtec's Will It Blend videos have had over 46 million views on YouTube,
71 million views on Will It blend.com and has 100,000 plus subscribers of their RSS feed.

Blendtec's marketing department is now a profit center for the Utah based 180 employee company that makes commercial and home appliances making over $50,000 on Revver as well as selling DVDs and ringtones of their theme music.

George says that he still has old media coming to him to ask if he wants to spend big bucks on advertising and he thinks their crazy. George loves to say that, "...social media is not new media it's what's happening now."

He ended his presentation by doing a live demo and blending a garden rake that he just bought at the local Pasadena Home Depot.

One of the Best Online Video Business Models

The "Leave Britney Alone" Guy has been trying to become famous for awhile by video blogging on Youtube but it wasn’t until a few days ago that he landed 8 Million views in a week with his Leave Britney Alone video. He now has a TV Show deal in the works but had he been selling something other than himself he could have already made some money with his online videos.

One of the best business models for online video monetization is where you are using your videos to sell your own products and you are getting paid on the back end as well.

Take for example the Will It Blend videos from Blendtec. (The one above is "Will It Blend Chuck Norris.") These guys are selling blenders. They make funny videos that are emotionally compelling commercials for their product then they post the videos on Revver and get paid thousands of dollars from Revver for the advertising that is placed next to their own commercial. Imagine getting paid for your own commercial?

The only thing better is if you were getting paid upfront to sell someone else’s products (that don’t cost you money to produce) so that your video production costs were paid for and you could sell your own products (say a DVD, T-Shirt or Calender) as well while still getting paid for the advertising.

So you get paid upfront by a sponsor, that covers your production costs, then you get paid by advertisiers and you sell your own products. Sounds like what Ask a Ninja is doing.

Now would you like me to tell you the Leave Brittney Alone Guy's Real Name ?