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While hundreds camped overnight outside many AT&T stores nationwide, including one at the University Mall, for Apple Inc.'s Friday launch of the much-hyped new iPhone 3G, Blendtec founder Tom Dickson blended his as part of an infomercial for YouTube.
But it's not because he was mad at the fact that he, like many in the U.S. and worldwide, couldn't get the new iPhone to work early Friday. In fact, Blendtec's team of savvy engineers were able to get the phone to work for the new infomercial they were creating on Friday -- and then they pulverized it.
Capitalizing on the cult-like popularity of the Orem company's "Will It Blend?" online videos, Dickson partnered with AT&T -- the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S. -- in hopes of recreating the success of the first infomercial he made blending the iPhone last year after its initial launch. The video, along with others in the series, can be seen on www.willitblend.com.
When Blendtec's first iPhone blending infomercial hit the Web last year, it snagged at least five million views on YouTube, and another five million views on the company's Web site, making it one of Blendtec's most popular "Will it Blend" videos, said Jeff Robe, director of marketing.
"We are very anxious to repeat our success with the introduction of the new iPhone launch, and want to capitalize on some of that fervor and excitement," he said. "Shooting live on location and incorporating that footage into the video is something we'd never done before. In fact, the first 50 people in line at the Orem store became part of our video because we were filming from inside the store before it opened at 8 a.m."
The goal of the infomercial is to make Blendtec a household name -- a strategy that has helped the company's online sales skyrocket more than 500 percent since the launch of the videos in October 2006, Robe said.
The company's blenders are sold to commercial clients including coffee and restaurant chains, smoothie bars and fitness centers, as well as home users through road shows at wholesale clubs, independent dealers and on the Internet.
"We're doing this to stay trendy when new gadgets like the iPhone come out," said Dickson, CEO of Blendtec. "Normally, companies won't let you do videos like this, but we're so popular now. AT&T was also curious to see what kind of exposure they would get."
In the new iPhone blending infomercial launched on YouTube late Friday, Dickson touts the virtues of the new iPhone, then he proceeds to blend it into black dust.
"You can hear a sound like 'NOoooooooooo ... ' in the background audio of the infomercial. We dubbed in that sound because we imagined that's what people who wanted to buy the new iPhone felt when they saw the phone being blended," Robe said.
Dickson is now auctioning the iPhone dust on eBay in hopes of raising funds for Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.
When Blendtec blended the original iPhone a year ago, it auctioned the dust and debris on eBay to a man in Denmark for $901 and donated the proceeds to the hospital. "Back then, 220,000 people clicked on eBay to see what the dust sold for," he said.
That, Robe said, was a classic example of the success of viral videos or what he calls the use of the Internet to expose consumers to products in a way that's entertaining. "That kind of social marketing works because people don't think they are watching an ad," he said.
The new 8GB iPhone 3G, which updates the original one launched in 2007 by speeding up Internet access and adding a navigation chip, is selling at $199.99, compared with its predecessor, which retailed at between $400 and $500 a year ago. The new 16GB iPhone is selling at $299.99.
But not all iPhone fans were happy with their hard-won acquisition Friday because many couldn't get their phones to work earlier that morning, thanks to a global problem with Apple's iTunes servers that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store.
Instead, employees told buyers to go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their own computers, AT&T spokesman Michael Coe told the Associated Press Friday. But the iTunes servers were equally hard to reach from home, leaving the phones unusable except for emergency calls.
The problem extended to owners of the previous iPhone model. A software update released for that phone on Friday morning required the phone to be reactivated through iTunes, the AP report said.
When the first iPhone went on sale a year ago, customers performed the whole activation procedure at home, freeing store employees to focus on sales. But the new model is subsidized by carriers, and Apple and AT&T therefore planned to activate all phones in-store to get customers on a contract, the AP report said.
Friday's glitches were due in part to the new phone going on sale in 21 countries including the United States, creating a global burden on the iTunes servers.
iPhone fever was strong even in Japan, where consumers are used to tech-heavy phones that do restaurant searches, e-mail, music downloads, reading digital novels and electronic shopping. More than 1,000 people lined up at the Softbank Corp. store in Tokyo and the phone quickly sold out, the AP report said.
• The Associated Press contributed to this story. |
