Will It Blend?

Will It Blend?
Genre	Viral marketing, Paid programming
Created by	George Wright Tom Dickson
Starring	Tom Dickson
Country of origin	USA
Language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Kels Goodman
Location(s)	Utah
Camera setup	Kels Goodman
Broadcast
Original channel	YouTube
Original run	October 30, 2006 (2006-10-30) – present
External links
Website

Will It Blend? is a viral marketing campaign consisting of a series of infomercials demonstrating the Blendtec line of blenders, especially the Total Blender. In the show, Tom Dickson, the Blendtec founder, attempts to blend various unusual items in order to show off the power of his blender. Dickson started this marketing campaign after doing a blending experiment with a box of matches.

Structure

Tom Dickson blending a Wii Remote on Will It Blend?[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVAaz9vFdSo

At some point during the blending process, a subtitle appears stating whether or not the particular items are safe to blend at home. Golf balls, marbles, cell phones and cubic zirconia, for example, are not safe. These show the subtitle "Don't try this at home". On the other hand, 24 credit cards, ice, and a McDonald's Big Mac Extra Value Meal are safe to blend. These show the subtitle "Please try this at home." He usually starts the blender after he says "I'm going to press the [Subject] button." While the item is being blended, Dickson smiles and waits. When the process is finished, Dickson frequently warns viewers not to breathe the smoke or dust that results when blending unsafe items by saying "[Subject] smoke, don't breathe this!" At the end of each video, the contents are emptied out onto a work top, at which point the subtitle "Yes, it blends!" appears.

One of the most famous Will it Blend? creations is the "cochicken", which is half of a chicken (cooked, usually rotisserie) blended with 12 fluid ounces of Coca-Cola (without the can). Although the show's example was blended with the bones (and thus was disclaimed as safe to eat), a boneless^{[citation needed]} version was made on NBC's Today and served to Meredith Vieira.

Popular fan requests for the show include blending either another blender or a crowbar. It is highly unlikely that either would blend, and this probably means that neither would even be attempted, because of the nature and purpose of the show—marketing Blendtec products. A demonstration video featuring the anticipated crowbar was interrupted by a cell phone, to which Dickson responds by stuffing the entire crew's cell phones into the blender and blending them instead. The show has attempted to blend increasingly unlikely items, such as a six foot garden rake and a sealed can of soda.

Between the 24th and 30th of January 2007, Will it Blend was shot at a different location.

On the April 3, 2007 episode, Dickson placed a camcorder in the blender, giving viewers a first-person look inside the container while being blended. Shortly afterwards, the production team, Kels Goodman and Ray Hansen, attempted to return what was left of the camcorder to Best Buy, with no success.

On the July 10, 2007, episode, an iPhone played the video intro before being blended. The resulting remains of the iPhone (which consisted of powder and a mangled metal frame), along with a brand new Blendtec blender and a DVD compilation of the commercials, were put up for auction on eBay and sold at US$901 (which was given to charity). This was repeated with an iPhone 3G on the July 11, 2008, episode, with the eBay auction including a "Will It Blend" t-shirt, an autographed jar (holding the blended remains of the phone), the box the iPhone came in (including the earphones), and a brand new Blendtec Total Blender. On the April 5, 2010, episode, an iPad was blended after being smashed to fit into the blender.The number of views this video received prompted Dickson to set up a contest on blendtec.com to give away either the shredded or the boxed iPad. Each comes with a free Blendtec blender. On the June 25, 2010, episode, an iPhone 4 was blended. Following this, a "Blend my Phone Contest" was announced, the prize being a new iPhone 4 with a 2 year contract paid by Dickson and, as the name of the contest indicated, your old Mobile phone blended. The winner, announced on July 12 that year, was Ashley S. from Portland, Oregon.

One of the most extreme episodes featured Dickson placing six Bic lighters in the blender. In a matter of seconds, the mixture of butane, metal and plastic ignited into a ball of fire inside the container. The scene was exaggerated by the addition of nuclear explosion film footage before one of the production crew sprayed a fire extinguisher on the still-operating blender.

Tom Dickson blending at YouTube Live

Some episodes are produced to coincide with certain events. For example, three episodes aired during the weekend of Super Bowl XLI. Because of trademark restrictions, the words "Super Bowl" were substituted with other words such as "Super Sunday," "The Big Game" or "That Last Football Game." The first episode had Dickson blend a smoothie out of salsa, tortilla chips, Buffalo wings and some Budweiser. The second and third episodes used two blenders to predict the outcome of the Super Bowl by blending miniature helmets (AFC vs. NFC) and foam footballs (Indianapolis Colts vs. Chicago Bears). To coincide with the release of the film Transformers, Dickson blended the Transformers toys Bumblebee and Swindle before challenging two of his grandchildren to transform the remains. When Dickson learned that The Beach Boys did not win Esquire Magazine's 2007 Esky Award, he blended the trophy. He also blended the music/rhythm video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock after finding no Beach Boys in it, and the first-person shooter Halo 3 after two of his grandchildren beat him in a multiplayer game. To celebrate the release of Weezer's 2008 album, Dickson blended a copy of the CD with a can of pork and beans (a reference to the album's first single, as Will It Blend? is among the internet memes referenced in the song's video). Dickson also blended the Wii Wheel after breaking it during a game of Mario Kart Wii, and a Grand Theft Auto IV disc because the 1968 Mustang GT 390 (like in Bullitt) was not included in the game.

Impact

Dickson has revealed that the campaign has been a great success for Blendtec:

The campaign took off almost instantly. We have definitely felt an impact in sales. Will it Blend has had an amazing impact to our commercial and our retail products.

Blendtec now sells Will It Blend? merchandise, including a spoof shirt with the slogan "Tom Dickson is my Homeboy".

Dickson has made many national television appearances, including NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 30, 2007, on which he blended a rake handle in mere seconds. Dickson also made his appearance in the History Channel series Modern Marvels. In the episode World's Strongest III aired March 6, 2008 the show ends with a special Will it Blend to prove if he can blend the channel's longest running series (in the form of a portable MP3 player).

In April 2007, radio station KDRF (eD-FM) in Albuquerque, New Mexico enlisted Tom Dickson to do a Will It Blend? version to promote the radio station. The three 30-second commercials show different styles of music CDs being blended, showcasing the station's variety format.

In September 2007, the videos earned the second highest annual payout of about US$15000 from the video hosting service Revver.

In 2008, Will It Blend? was featured on a Dreyer's/Edy's Dibs commercial. In the commercial, a girl holding a large lollipop tries some Dibs and wonders what will happen to lollipops when kids stop buying them in favor of the bite-sized ice cream treats. The next scene shows giant lollipops being used as an alternative to waxing a man's hairy back before Dickson blends them. A second version of the commercial has Dickson himself being waxed.

As far as awards, Will it Blend? has been nominated for the 2007 YouTube award for Best Series, winner of .Net Magazine's 2007 Viral Video campaign of the year and winner of the Bronze level Clio Award for Viral Video in 2008.

The iPhone episode of Will It Blend? won Ad of the Week in episode 8 of the Australian show The Gruen Transfer.

As of February 21, 2012, the Blendtec series of videos had collected a total of 188,170,865 views on YouTube.

List of episodes

List of episodes 

1. Marbles
2. Rake Handle
3. Chuck Norris and Bad guys (Some action figures are blended, but the Chuck Norris figure emerges unblended from the bad guys' dust.)
4. "Extra Value Meal" (a mixture of a Big Mac, fries and a milkshake)
5. "Cochicken" (a mixture of Coca-Cola and chicken)
6. Ice (Blended into snow)
7. Golf balls
8. Coke Can Smoothie (a mixture of a can of Coca-Cola (the contents of the can and the can itself) and ice)
9. Credit Cards
10. The Movie (a mixture of a DVD, popping corn and a can of Coke)
11. Pens
12. Thanksgiving Dinner (Tom's toothless Uncle Floyd came over for dinner and Tom blended his serving of Thanksgiving dinner for him. He started with a turkey leg because Floyd preferred dark meat. Afterwards, he poured in a bowl of cranberries, and a slice of pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream. Finally, he sprinkled in some salt and pepper for taste.)
13. Bottled Beverage
14. Tilapia -O- Matic (Tom places a frozen fish into the blender half filled with water and blends the fish.)
15. Oysters Dickson blends the oysters, shells and all, and adds cocktail sauce and tabasco sauce.
16. Crowbar (Does not blend crowbar, eventually just blends mobile phones. However, in some opening title sequences, Tom can be seen trying to force a crowbar into the blender.)
17. 3 Hockey pucks
18. Real-Time Compilation (Video made as a bet that no stop motion, mirrors, or other tricks were used to make the other videos. This video showed the blending of light bulbs, golf balls, and a rake handle. The light bulbs were blended in 11 seconds, the golf balls in 30 seconds, and the rake handle in 10 seconds.)
19. iPod (Dickson blends an iPod.)
20. Coffee Beans (Dickson shows that the blender can be used to grind coffee beans as opposed to a coffee grinder.)
21. Nutcracker with nuts
22. 53 Toy Cars (Dickson woke up having stepped on all the toy cars left out by his grandchildren, so he blended them all to teach them a lesson. This video showed the subtitle "Kids, Don't Try This At Home!")
23. Christmas Dinner (Toothless Uncle Floyd from the Thanksgiving Dinner video was returning for Christmas dinner, so Dickson once again blended up his meal. He blended a Cornish Game Hen which weighed 2 pounds, a raw yam, and a few pieces of fruitcake. He also poured in eggnog.)
24. 2 Barbie Dancing Princess Dolls
25. Cassette Tapes (TDK cassette tapes)
26. A can of Campbell's Tomato Soup
27. Light bulbs
28. Golf Club (Dickson needs help on his "short-shot" , so he blends and destroys the handle of his driver.)
29. Blending granulated sugar into powdered sugar
30. "Workout in a Blender" (a mixture of a Winsor Pilates workout DVD video, tofu, a protein bar, Yoplait yogurt, and a Slim-Fast shake)
31. "Dental hygiene Surprise" (a mixture of toothpaste, dental floss, mouthwash and a toothbrush)
32. Pickled Pig's Feet
33. Ceramic Magnets (falsely claimed to be neodymium magnets)
34. Tape measure
35. "S***r B**l Smoothie" (a mixture of salsa, 13 buffalo chicken wings, tortilla chips and a can of Budweiser)
36. "S***r B**l Conference Blend-Off" (two blenders blend small plastic football helmets, one set representing the AFC and the other one the NFC.)
37. "S***r B**l Blend-Off" (A NERF football is placed in each of the two blenders, one representing the Indianapolis Colts and one the Chicago Bears.)
38. Cubic Zirconia (purposefully described as diamonds)
39. "Annoying Valentine Gift" (A stuffed toy that looks like a red devil holding a heart that reads "Be Mine". It moves its arms, legs and mouth as it sings Mah Nà Mah Nà and also has flashing red antennae. Dickson blends the toy as it is singing.)
40. 12 Glow Sticks (Dickson is a skeleton at the end.)
41. A Can of Campbell's chicken soup
42. Toilet Plunger (Dickson says the flat blades and square blending chamber pull food into the blender, so there is no need for spoons, spatulas, or plungers. He then proceeds to blend a plunger.)
43. Healthy Green Drink (Dickson blends 2 cans of Dole pineapple juice without the cans, spinach, a single cube of pineapple with the eye so it can "see what will happen", some flax seed, a banana without the peel, and some ice.)
44. "Will It Blend? LIVE!
45. Video Camera (Dickson connects a data cable to the camcorder so viewers can see what happens inside the blending chamber during blending.)
46. Baseball
47. Esky Award (Dickson was mad that The Beach Boys did not win Esquire Magazine's 2007 Esky Award, so he proceeded to blend one.)
48. Makeup
49. A 15-foot garden hose
50. Tiki Torch
51. Will It Blend? On The Road.
52. "Toilet Flusher Thingy." (A flapper valve, float pump and flushing handle of a toilet are blended together into powder.)
53. Transformers Toys (Dickson's grandchildren ask him to transform his Transformers and he does so-in a Blendtec Blender.)
54. "Carny Cuisine" (2 corn dogs, French's mustard without the bottle, pink cotton candy and a cherry Snow cone with the cone are blended. The resulting smoothie did not taste good. It would also have been hazardous to drink because of the blended paper cone and wooden corn dog sticks.)
55. EZ Cheese
56. iPhone (Dickson sold the remains of the iPhone, consisting of powder and a mangled frame on eBay.)
57. Spam (Dickson blended canned Spam with 3 extra-large eggs. The canned Spam was a pun on Internet spam as Dickson was annoyed at all the spam in his inbox.)
58. 6 Bic Cigarette Lighters
59. Video camera Part 2: The Return (The producers attempt to return the blended camcorder to Best Buy. They do not succeed because having blended the camera was considered customer abuse.)
60. Cricut (In this video, Tom got his wife a Cricut set and blended all her old scissors, dies and punches.)
61. Guitar Hero Gibson X-Plorer controller (Dickson buys a copy of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock at the request of his 27 grandchildren. After realizing the game does not have any Beach Boys songs, he decided to blend the controller. Because the controller is too big for the blender, he "pulls a Pete Townshend on it" (destroying the body of the controller) and blends the neck of the guitar before setting the remains on fire).
62. Halo 3 (Dickson gets mad at the fact that his 4 and 5 year old grandchildren beat him at Halo 3, so he takes away the game and blends the game disc.)
63. Picket Sign (Dickson realizes that his producer/writer is on strike, and he has nothing to blend; so he runs to the front of the office and grabs his producer's picket sign. He then blends the picket sign's handle and crumples up the sign.)
64. Blend the Vote (Dickson blends a toy donkey and elephant to help decide the outcome of the 2008 election.)
65. 1 Million Volt Stun Gun (Episode Title "Don't Blend Me Bro")
66. Full Strength smoothie inventor Shawn Phillips (Phillips was not actually blended, he made a smoothie in the blender)
67. Hearing Aids (His uncle, Floyd, needed new hearing aids).
68. Remote Controls (Dickson buys a universal remote, and has no need for the rest of them. He also starts the blender with the remote.)
69. Rubik's Cube
70. Wii Remote (Uncle Floyd was bowling in Wii Sports when the wrist strap of the Wii Remote snapped and destroyed the TV. So, Dickson took the strapless Wii Remotes and blended them before giving him a new one and instating a wrist strap rule.)
71. Grand Theft Auto IV (Dickson bought Grand Theft Auto IV, wanting to steal a 1968 Mustang GT390. He blended it, after realizing that the 1968 GT390 is not in the game.)
72. "Weezer" Pork and Beans" (Dickson blended Weezer's new album and a can of Campbell's pork and beans, in a reference to Weezer's hit single "Pork and Beans.")
73. Mario Kart (Dickson blended the Wii Wheel, after breaking it while playing Mario Kart.)
74. iPhone 3G (Dickson bought the new iPhone 3G and he no longer needed the original version so he decided to blend it. But he accidentally blended the 3G.)
75. Nike(He blends a Nike Air Max 90 sneaker and rubber soles one after the other, only emptying the bucket at the end.)
76. Time Warp (Dickson blended an alarm clock in honor of appearing on the TV show Time Warp)
77. Man Cave (In order to get back to his 'manly roots', Dickson decided to build a Man Cave and blended some items he felt didn't belong there, including a Hannah Montana doll, a lava lamp and a slice of quiche.)
78. Tom's Tom Tom He wants to blend a TomTom Go 550 GPS unit because while he's driving and she's said "Tom Tom" (she repeats Dickson's name) so he decided to blend a TomTom Go 550.
79. YouTube Live (Dickson does not blend anything, instead promoting his upcoming appearance on YouTube Live. He also uses some adjectives which begin with the word blend. An example is blendtastic.)
80. YouTube Live appearance: In YouTube Live, Chad Vader is tired of sweeping up his store and asks Tom to blend his broom. He successfully blends the broomstick, and Chad then asks if he can blend some food for him, because he can't eat anything that isn't blended. Dickson blends a Cheeseburger, Breath Mints, Diet Sierra Mist (with the can), Red Beets, and Ketchup Packets together (with aid from Chad Vader using the Force).
81. Avocados
82. iPhone App in iTunes (He didn't blend the app, he just promoted the app for viewers, but later, the "Will it Blend?" app is removed from iTunes.)
83. Nissan GTR
84. German-English dictionary disc
85. Skis
86. The Bailout- Dickson blends things representative of the U.S. government bailout efforts
87. New Olympus cameras get mixed - As an advertising campaign for Olympus, Dickson blends a digital SLR and a compact camera, which causes an explosion and the video was marked as "to be continued." The blending was redone a few weeks later, with the addition of a lens, HD Camcorder and voice recorder. Instead of a usual result, the video shows that the objects have been "blended" into the new Olympus PEN E-P1.
88. Money Clip from the infomercial in which a money clip was placed in a blender to demonstrate the durability of the clip.
89. Silly Putty(Tom blends a few balls of Silly putty, and they turn into powder. Tom then restarts the machine and eventually paste is formed)
90. Ford Fiesta (Dickson unsuccessfully attempts to blend a chunk of boron steel as used in the structure of the 2011 Ford Fiesta, but instead accepts an invitation to "go for a spin" with a Fiesta Movement agent where he sits on the back seat during the electronically faked test drive and blends items of garbage lying around the inside of the car).
91. Laser Pointers.
92. Air soft gun.
93. Facebook book (Tom blends a small book with faces of people who work with him or appeared with him stuck in his book.)
94. Tire Repair Kit
95. iPad (The iPad did not fit, and so Tom smashed it in half by hitting it against the motor of the blender then folding it. The metal back cover is seen falling off and was not blended. The video got millions of views within the first week, and was featured on news channels.)
96. Pool noodle
97. iPhone 4 Uncovered (Tom loves his new iPhone with the new feature such as a FaceTime and it is faster, however the Apple Task Force apprehended Tom and tased him, then "To be continued, June 25..." appears on the screen.)
98. iPhone 4 Extended version of last iPhone 4 Video. Before the end, everyone can join to "Blend my Phone Contest" that you can win a new iPhone 4 with a 2-year contract and you can send your any old phone to blend it on the next episode. The official winner of the contest was Ashley S. from Portland, OR. At the end, a fake Steve Jobs was opening his briefcase from him (Tom Dickson), and it was a iBlend. The original was not synced properly, on the other video (Episode title: Will it Blend? - iPhone 4) the episode was in-sync.
99. Vuvuzela World Cup 2010 Tom, like everyone else is excited to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup but is annoyed by the constant buzzing of vuvuzelas, so he proceeds to blend one.
100. Old Spice
101. Doctor Who and the Daleks (Tom blends a toy Dalek. The sound of the blender is replaced by the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing.)
102. CR-48 Chrome Notebook (The Chrome Notebook can't fit in the blender, and so Tom breaks it by smashing it on the motor until it was broken in half. Eventually, only the bottom half of the notebook was blended.)
103. Traxxas Gymkhaha Ford Fiesta (Ken Block visits Blendtec and teaches Dickson how to drift with a radio-controlled Ford Fiesta. Dickson crashes the car and they proceed to blend it.)
104. iPad 2 Blend (At the start of the video, a fake Steve Jobs had a conference for the new iPad 2 (which is the same from the original conference), then Dickson, started crashing the iPad 2 into half, (like the same video that he smashed the iPad) then he blended it, (like the same video that he blended the iPad), the fake Steve Jobs was sad because of blending the iPad 2. At the end of the video, somebody called Dickson and the caller said "Good job, Tom in destroying that iPad 2", and when Dickson revealed who is this caller, the caller said "It's Bill" and the video ended)
105. Xbox 360 Kinect
106. Sonim XP3300 Force (Tom blends the phone because it is said to be the "World's most durable cellphone". In the end the phone itself remains mostly intact and only the rubber case has been blended.)
107. Justin Bieber (Tom blends a Justin Bieber doll, his CD, a DVD of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, a bunch of "girl fan" dolls and a toy unicorn. Emerging from the pile of debris is a doll with Gene Simmons' head.)
108. Orabrush Tom blends a group of Orabrushes. This is the first episode to feature the new "BlendCam" which shows the inside of the blender from the top.
109. Football Kicking Tee (Tom wants to blend a football for the start of football season but he already did that(episode 37) so he instead blends a kicking tee.)
110. Paintballs Tom blends a cup of yellow paintballs at the viewers' request.
111. Super Glue Again, at the request of viewers, Tom blends several tubes of super glue. In the end the blended chunks are stuck in, and to, the blending jar.
112. Solar lamp Tom and his wife have bought several solar yard lamps and have an extra one. Tom blends it with the lights out, so it lights up, and a timer is shown that shows how long the light continues to light while being blended. The light lasts for 5.20 seconds.
113. iPhone 4S Tom starts by showing off the new Will It Blend? App for the iPhone and iPad. He then mentions that he redesigned the total blender with Apple's Siri technology and simply commands it to start blending. The video was dedicated to Steve Jobs who passed away about a week and a half before the release of the iPhone 4S and this episode.
114. Skeleton Tom blends a skeleton for Halloween so as not to scare the children, as he claims.
115. Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit Tom and his new friend Drew blend the junk food that Drew used to gain 75 pounds for his Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit experiment.
116. Valentine roses Tom blends and entire vase full of roses along with some candy hearts and some heart shaped chocolate because he is simply sick of Valentine's Day.

Dickson often gives a reason for his destruction of products, such as cellular phones interrupting his show, a poor golf game, needing to update his iPod, and his grandchildren leaving their toys out (hurting his feet).

See also

• Blendtec
• Will It Float?
• Will It Break?
• How Much is Inside?
• YouTube

External links

• Will It Blend? channel on YouTube
• Will It Blend? official site