Can Social Media Work For Small Business? Castle Ink Thinks So

Castle Ink Cartridge?s ?Will It Print?? video series is certainly generating buzz around the ink cartridge industry. The clever videos satirize the well-known ?Will It Blend?? videos, and are an entertaining departure from Castle Ink?s more serious, how-to video series.

Greenlawn, NY (PRWEB) August 31, 2010 ?Let?s face it, some products are not sexy. There is nothing particularly fun, interesting or entertaining about ink cartridges,? says Lauren Elward, Castle Ink?s CEO. So how can a small business with a dull product suite effectively leverage social media to drive interest and sales? They can start by checking out Castle Ink?s new video series, ?Will It Print?? Castle Ink is an ink cartridge retailer based in New York, that according to Elward, was looking for a unique new way to generate awareness around refilled ink cartridges.

Castle Ink recently released a series of videos on YouTube that have some pundits questioning their knowledge of advertising (Check out the videos at Castle Ink's Channel). Injecting wine, mustard, and blueberries into empty printer ink cartridges and then installing them in a brand new printer is a counter-intuitive concept, some would say it makes no sense. But sense has never been a firm requirement for great ideas. In fact Elward says the fact that it doesn?t make any sense at all is why the videos have become so popular, so quickly.

The ?Will It Print?? videos explicitly reference another popular series of commercials about blenders (?Will It Blend??). But the ?Will It Blend?? commercials make conventional sense because they seek to show the durability of the product which they are trying to sell, carried out in sensationalistic fashion. This explains why they are popular, but some would posit that it is also why they are limited and eventually will grow stale.

The ?Will It Print?? videos satirize those ?Will it Blend?? videos by making direct reference to them, but with the ultimate purpose of selling ink cartridges containing actual ink. There is no logical correlation between the two products, or even the concepts, with the exception of the ?lab experiment? angle. Furthermore, the ?Will It Print?? videos do not feature any ink, the actual product, but instead use unusual ?substitutes.?

The videos make one completely rethink advertising. ?Thinking out of the box is one of our strengths,? says Elward, ?It?s the only way for company as small as Castle Ink to compete in a billion dollar industry.? Elward says that most forms of conventional advertising, such as search engine marketing and display advertising are just too expensive and competitive for smaller companies.

The Castle Ink videos have appeal, if not for the entertainment value, then for the original advertising model. It will be particularly interesting to see how Castle Ink takes this concept even further, and applies it to a larger range of contexts, beyond food and liquids. One thing is for sure, the ?Will It Print?? videos are cohesive in terms of both the tone and concept, and if nothing else, have created a buzz.