LONGEST PINEWOOD DERBY TRACK

Tom (Dickson, of "Will it Blend" fame) came running up to me telling me I HAVE to spend my Saturday on August 28th with him at the Pinewood Derby Track. I was not excited to spend my Saturday at "work", but realized since we are currently without some key marketing employees, including a marketing director, I better fill in.

What I witnessed was at Rio Tinto stadium in Sandy, Utah, the longest Pinewood Derby track in the world. An average Pinewood Derby track is about 40 feet. The previous recored was about 268 feet. Tom's track was measured at 336 feet. The local BSA Chapter, Utah National Parks Council, did the work to get Guinness Book of World Records to record this event.

My objective was to set up artwork signage that represented Blendtec and videotape the event. Scouts were invited from all over Utah to try out their car on the track. I noticed for most of the cars, the real competition was can it even make it through the whole race.

Some "kids" (I use that term loosely, since many of the fathers probably pitched in and helped) came with the official weight and design that make it legal to participate (5 ounces). Many came with altered cars (motors, etc) and obviously would not count, but were allowed to test the track anyway.

The only drawback was the wind was terrible. My hat kept falling off. Speakers that were hanging on stands were falling. The tents were toppling over. It was also a cool image next to the conssession stand when the napkin box fell over and there was a whirl wind of napkins in the air. I think next year Blendtec is thinking of using Energy Solutions Arena (formerly the Delta Center) along with a longer track to help with not interrupting the air flow of the cars.

Here are a few links. We made it on KSL, Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune and other publications.

WILL IT BLEND on "The View"... whoopteedoo

Ok that didn't sound very convincing. It could just me my "outsider" mentality toward things. I have been known to be a sour-puss toward "popular" events. I guess I look at the eternal perspective things. Part of why I don't like reality shows. They make celebrities out of beautiful people that just sit around in coffee shops and bitch about the environment, or whatever shallow topic is cool to complain about that week.

Ok, ok, not ALL reality shows are like that. But you know what I mean. So when the opportunity came for me to provide footage and information about our popular viral website, I was a little hesitant.

On the day"The View" asked me for footage from WILL IT BLEND, they just had their biggest show ever last week when Barak Hussein Obama was on, and the ladies lovingly asked their softball questions about "the issues" in their shallow-topic manor. So how could I resist...

I got a call from what sounded like a kid who might have been an intern... simply because he was nice. He told me that the Executive Producer of The View "specifically" asked for WILL IT BLEND. As I was returning the information along with the overnight shipment of videos, I sent an e-mail to this young man known as "The Tape Coordinator" for The View. I just told him that if a credit is given on the screen to credit "Kels Goodman/Blendtec".

What I didn't know was that I was CCing (that means copying to another address) the Producer and another crew person from the show, both were ladies. All of a sudden I got an e-mail back from the producer in bold:

No!… we are only crediting the websites…that’s what the seg is about… websites…so we will credit willitblend.com….if pple want info on it they can log onto your website.

I wasn't sure, did that sound like anger? It did to me.

Well I was this close (holding two fingers close together) to saying "Ok, no credit, no video" (after all, isn't that was famous people do?). I already knew by this time that our segment was going to be lame. But I remained optimistic, after all, the Executive Producer "specifically" asked for Will it Blend videos, right?

Then, I got another e-mail from the other lady on the copy list:

Just want to make sure the tape will come tomorrow or Monday morning the LATEST...

That one didn't seem too bad. But after the first one, I figured the ladies at The View were ganging up on me. Just like that poor intern "tape coordinator". (Now I remember why I hate working on live events) My only thought was that he is a young guy trying to "make it" in the biz, and the only way he can is to be castrated by a couple of powerful producer/decision makers.

Just like the castration that was done to Will it Blend when it finally made it on the show. A whopping 53.5 seconds of pure viral goodness. Yeah, we got on and yeah we got talked about. (They showed the iPhone 4 being blended.) The ladies brought on guests who were "experts" in viral material, one who talked about WIB was a guy from the show G4 (don't know where it plays).

He really downplayed WIB (we were last on the list, you can tell we were "squeezed" in). I emailed facts about WIB, but he got it all wrong. He made it sound like Tom Dickson just messed around one day and made this hot blender and decided to film it blending all kinds of things. I tried to tell them it was a campaign for the blender that has already been around for years. A real blender you can purchase. And that the result of WIB was a dramatic increase in sales. But obviously, he missed that.

The ladies all sat around saying "who would want to watch that". Only Whoopee had the balls to say that "some of these video are actually funny". (Joy concluded with, "and many are not"). Leave it to Joy for the final word.

Anyway, my conclusion from this whole event was this: Filmmakers shouldn't make films for filmmakers, for they never pay the bill. Meaning, who gives a crap what programmers and decision-makers say. They may be the one's who get it in the theater, get it on TV, get it on the radio. But it's the everyday people who make the final decision on what works and what doesn't.

There is much more to learn about the entertainment industry.