What you see: Tom Dickson, dressed in his usual white lab coat, protective goggles, and thick leather gloves, informs us that artists and photographers have written in to suggest items they’d like to see blended. They include: an Olympus digital SLR camera, a simple point-and-shoot camera, a high-def camcorder, a digital voice recorder, and artwork (preshredded in the nearby wood chipper). The result is a sooty cocktail of plastic and parts. Until the end, that is, when Dickson pulls out a shiny new Olympus camera—the E-P1—that, the gag demo reveals, has the functionality of all those products blended into one.

Take Out/TakeAway: Dickson has blended all kinds of household brands in the past, from a McDonald’s (MCD) Extra Value Meal to the iPhone (the original and, later, 3G models). Usually, it is only the blender that remains intact, with the products reduced to a pulverized form. The stunts have also turned Dickson into an unlikely pop culture figure. It was only a matter of time before brands started coming to him to see what mayhem his blender could do to their precious products.

Social Media Effect: The "Will It Blend?" webisode has been running for nearly three years now, and, judging by its loyal fan base, the gag just doesn’t seem to ever get old. The conceit is that it is the fans who suggest to Blendtec which products to plunk in the blender to test the laws of destructibility. But is Dickson himself mutilating the conceit by doing such an obvious product placement? That’s for Dickson to worry about. Olympus Corp., a brand that rarely jokes around, has already scored some hefty buzz for its tie-up.

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YouTube BrandWatch is The Big Money's exploration into how the world's best-known businesses, so adept at managing their images offline, are being perceived online, where control is harder to come by. Every week, The Big Money features a corporate-themed video that's had significant viewership on YouTube: some approved, some unapproved, some mashed-up combinations of the two. And we'll ask our readers to vote on how the video affects the brands. We think the responses will surprise you, and provide a window onto what is fast becoming the most important playground for corporate games. (Note: This feature has no official relationship to YouTube or its owner, Google.)