Blendtec "Will It Blend?": 700% Sales Growth From a $50 Idea

In 2006, Blendtec's founder started dropping unlikely objects — an iPhone, glow sticks, a rake handle, marbles — into his blenders on camera and asking one question: "Will it blend?" The series was made for almost nothing, went massively viral, and Blendtec has cited a ~700% increase in retail sales in the years that followed.

What they ran

Founder Tom Dickson, in a lab coat, calmly pulverizes objects no one should put in a blender. Each episode is a self-contained demonstration ending with the smoke-filled jar and the tagline. The product proves itself, on camera, every single time.

Why it worked

• The product is the entertainment. There's no gap between "ad" and "demo" — watching the thing work is the fun. That's the rarest and best kind of ad.
• Infinitely repeatable format. "Will it blend?" is a template. Every new object is a new video, so the campaign scaled into a series instead of a one-off.
• Proof by extremes. If it can blend an iPhone, it can obviously handle your smoothie. The extreme demonstration makes the everyday use case feel trivial.

What to steal

The strongest ad is often a demonstration pushed to an extreme. If your product genuinely works, find the dramatic on-camera test that proves it — and turn it into a repeatable format, not a single spot.