I had lunch today with old friend Josh Bernoff. He's taking some time off from his role at Forrester to write what promises to be the definitive book on social media. In his research he's uncovered a lot of interesting case studies. One that I managed to miss was Blendtec's promotion of their industrial-strength blenders on YouTube. What started as a $50 training video (they test blenders by grinding up two-by-fours) became a big hit on YouTube, Revver and their own www.willitblend.com. Not only have their sales of blenders shot up, but they are making money on the videos as well.
They've blended many things, but my favorite is the iPhone:
Also take a look at their attempt to return a ground-up camcorder to Best Buy:
