Will It Blend?

Will It Blend? is an odd cross of the typical YouTube comedy video, and American advertising. It's like the adverts that feature a salesman explaining how an all new washing powder can get the housewife's sheets even whiter.

The advertising itself is somewhat retro, with cliche music, 'flashy' graphics, and inserts of other video clips showing what else can be blended.

It's hard to tell whether or not these 'flaws' are actual flaws. They liven up the video and make it more entertaining. As an advertising tool, it works well. It costs nothing to upload videos to YouTube, and it can only be a minor cost to actually produce the videos. The blender the video feature's, is Blendtec's TotalBlender. This blender costs $400. This is a high price for a blender, but if they manage to sell even 1 through their 'advertising' on YouTube, I'd be willing to believe it completely covers the video production costs.

Will It Blend? raises interesting questions regarding YouTube as a marketing tool, not just a 'place of expression' for a community of web users. The question remains as to what this means for the future of YouTube. Could it in fact become an archive of adverts, all low cost and with potentially wide market penetration? It's possible, but I hope not, and I think YouTube's community wouldn't want it either.