Youtube success stories

In class Friday, we watched a Youtube video of a grad student who put who posted simplified version of his grad school paper thesis about head tracking. Because of this video he received many job offers from big time corporations who were all interested in what his video talked about. Youtube offers the ability for normal people to “express” themselves using their creative minds and a camcorder. Because of his (Johnny Chung) head tracking video he may have receive a job that he loves and be set for life. So how many other people have received success from their Youtube videos?

One company that I found that received a lot of success from using Youtube was Blendtec; a company who sold blenders. The story, according to the Wall Street Journal, is that the first director of marketing for Blendtec discovered that the CEO would test the blenders with challenging and odd materials to see if they would blend. The director of marketing decided to make a video series about it and post it on Youtube. All in all this little marketing campaign cost fifty dollars to create. Soon many youtubers were tuning in to watch each new episode to see if Blendtec blenders could blend anything including glow sticks, the iphone, magnets, hockey pucks, marbles etc. With the popularity of the videos came national media attention regarding Blendtec’s new advertising campaign. And with this national attention and online attention came increase in sales — 43% increase.

Many individuals have received success from using Youtube. One such individual would be a 18 year old Massachusetts’ kid named Bo Burnham. While surfing Youtube in high school I came across one of his videos and, to simply put it, it was hilarious. He is a singing comedian who can be compared to the likes of Stephen Lynch. Over the next year, I would constantly introduce people to his videos and talk about how he should be signed. A few months ago he posted a new video and in the first ten seconds he talks about how we should go buy his new EP on itunes. Because of Youtube he now has an available EP on itunes which is outselling Dane Cook, a record deal with Comedy Central, has appeared on Last Call with Carson Daily, and is performing for people.

Looking back its truly amazing how CMC works and can lead to exponential attention for an individual or company. People would watch these videos then tell their friends about them or send a link to them. Because of this communication and the potential for so many people to see or hear about these videos people have become famous for something that they put together in their bed room.