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04/11/2009 by
19439 views

Will Elf Yourself Return In 2009? YES!

The pumpkins come out, the days grow shorter, the weather cools, and there’s no mistaking that the holiday season is upon us. Time to turn yourself, family, friends and pets into hilarious dancing elves again!? Over the past three holiday seasons, the elves of OfficeMax have become not just an annual holiday tradition, but a popular culture phenomenon.

elfyourself_2009_logo

OfficeMax first launched “Elf Yourself” for the 2006 holidays and has turned the free e-greeting site into an annual holiday tradition returning each season with new bells and whistles for the public to enjoy and spread holiday cheer. In 2007, ElfYourself.com attracted 193 million visits in six weeks to become the most viral initiative on record. A look back at each campaign, the results and lessons learned.

Elf Yourself 1.0 (2006)

OfficeMax hired two marketing agencies, Toy in New York and EVB in San Francisco, in 2006 to come up with fun sites that would help distinguish OfficeMax from its competitors. The agencies created about 20 different Web sites, including nine holiday games and sites to create e-cards. The e-card site “Elf Yourself” proved to be most popular of the multiple sites created.

In the earliest ElfYourself.com version you had the the possibility to turn just one person into a crazy dancing elf. All you had to do was find a photo of yourself (or your partner, boss, enemy, etc), select the facial area in the photo (with help of a web-based tool to scale and rotate your chosen shot) and submit the result. Additional you got the option to record a personal voice message to go with it through a toll-free number. Once completed, you could preview the result or email it to a friend.

Elfyourself.com was an instant success and got 200 unique visitors per second in 2006, with 8 new elves created per second. Elfyourself.com received more traffic in 2006 than popular holiday destinations Hallmark and American Greetings, see graph. On Flickr and Youtube you can still find some Elf Yourself 1.0 examples.

Elf Yourself 2006 Campaign Metrics (five weeks, 12/1/06 to 1/7/07)

  • Over 36 million site visits
  • Over 11 million elves were created (41,000 per hour at its peak)
  • Users spent a combined equivalent of 600 years on the site
  • Over 79,000 MySpace hits
  • Fastest mover on Alexa Rankings, reaching 267 most visited site
  • #2 on Entertainment Weekly “Must List”
  • Over 100 User created videos on YouTube
  • Over 2 million Google search results

“The campaign exceeded our expectations by tenfold,” said Bob Thacker, OfficeMax senior vice president of marketing and advertising. “It dramatically increased awareness of our brand.” The company is likely to repeat the campaign for the 2008 holiday season, he said.

Elf Yourself 2.0 (2007)

By the second holiday season, ElfYourself.com had become an online holiday destination. This time you could upload a headshot of yourself and three other friends or members of your family, to create a troupe of festively dressed dancing elves. In 2007 after six weeks of being live, the holiday site, ElfYourself.com, attracted a booming number of visitors and hit the bull’s eye of viral success, leaving Subservient Chicken, the Whopper Freakout and Monk-e-Mail all in the dust.

“Elf Yourself” images showed up on Flickr and Photobucket, and user-generated videos were uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo. Fans added ElfYourself.com to Digg, Mixx and StumbleUpon and posted e-greeting tweets on Twitter. The site spread like wildfire across social media and into mainstream culture.

Elf Yourself 2.0

Elf Yourself 2007 Campaign Metrics (11/21/07 to 1/2/08):

  • More than 193 million site visits with 123 million elves created
  • Average number of ElfYourself movies created per user: approx. 2 movies
  • Over 210 million elf dances were viewed
  • 60 elves were created per second
  • Users spent a combined 2,600 years on the site
  • 5,456 blogs posts about ElfYourself (Google Blog Search, 11/07 to 1/08)
  • Average time on site: 7.5 minutes
  • One in 10 Americans visited ElfYourself.com (Nielsen Online Strategic Services)
  • Ranked No. 51 most visited website on the web (HitWise Intelligence, 12/07)
  • Top-ranked site in the Humor category, holding the position for the last 3 weeks. (HitWise Intelligence, 1/08)
  • Ranked the most popular Entertainment – Humour website visited by Australians and New Zealanders in December 2007 (Hitwise)
  • Some 53% of visitors returned to the site
  • Ranked No. 1 site on “Movers & Shakers” (Alexa Rankings)
  • Ranked among top 1,000 sites in 50 countries (Alexa Rankings, 12/07)
  • Three awards wins, including the “Best Word of Mouth Marketing Campaign”, People’s Choice Award for “Best User Defined Experience” and “Best of Show”
  • Featured on CNN American Morning, ABC World News Now, Good Morning America, TODAY Show, TNT Sports News, Fox News, NYT BITS Blog, Rosie Chat, & TBS The Daily Flog.
  • 63% of participants who shop for office supplies at least 10 times per year were aware of Elf Yourself.
  • 95% of those who visited Elf Yourself claimed they would likely visit Elf Yourself again in 2008.
  • More than one-third of those who visited Elf Yourself said the site influenced their decision to visit OfficeMax, and about one-third of visitors said the site improved their perception of OfficeMax.

ElfYourself 3.0 (2008)

ElfYourself.com relaunched again in November 2008. OfficeMax partnered with JibJab to add entertaining new features and capabilities. In addition to more elves (up to five photos) and new dances (Classic, Disco, Charleston or Country), the ability to send the personalized video as holiday eCards, do a “QuickPost” to social media sites, or share with friends via a new Facebook application, users could also take their custom elves offline (for small fee) by downloading videos or creating custom photo gifts – playing cards, ornaments, mouse pads and coffee mugs. Consumer anticipation grew as the holidays got closer with thousands of people visiting the site daily according to Quantcast.

Elf Yourself 3.0

ElfYourself 3.0 Campaign Metrics (11/21/08 to 1/9/09)

  • Total elves created: 122 million
  • Total site visits: 55.5 million
  • Average number of ElfYourself movies created per user: 4.5 movies
  • Average time on site: 15 minutes
  • 14,080 blog posts about ElfYourself (Google Blog Search, 11/08 to 1/09)
  • ElfYourself widget was installed more than one million times
  • 636,500 YouTube views of user-generated ElfYourself videos
  • 7,262 fans of ElfYourself on Facebook
  • 1,500 tweets about ElfYourself on Twitter
  • 683 photos of ElfYourself on Flickr
  • 75 Diggs for ElfYourself.com

OfficeMax 2008 Campaign Goals

  • Deeper engagement
  • Greater brand association
  • Higher user-retention
  • Stronger social media presence


ElfYourself 4.0 (2009)

Will OfficeMax revive Elf Yourself yet again for a fourth annual holiday season? Only time will tell, but with holiday spirits at an all-time low during tough times around the world, ElfYourself.com would definitely be a nice addition this season and help us all get in the holiday spirit. Let’s hope for more elfing 4.0 and spreading cheer! 8)

Update: November 5th. As you can see below Elf Yourself will relaunch in about 5 days.

elfyourself4_counter1

Hints of an Elf Yourself return:

Elf Yourself being filmed in Union Square on November 3rd

officemax_elfyourself

OfficeMax.com: “Elf Yourself coming soon”

elfyourself_twitter

@ElfYourself Twitter page

officemax_facebook

OfficeMax replies my question on their Facebook page

officemax_twitter
officemax_tweet

Tweet by @OfficeMax with link to a tweetphoto

elfyourself_2008

Website of last year: “Check back next holiday season for more ElfYourself fun!”

Lessons Learned

Elf Yourself phenomenal viral success characteristics:

  • Simplicity: make it quick & easy
  • Participation: get people involved
  • Personalization: let people make it their own
  • Unexpected: surprise people
  • Humor/Entertainment: evoke an emotion; By making the site enjoyable to use, users flocked to it and spread the word themselves, creating a viral marketing campaign.
  • Distribution: use ALL media to tell a story
  • Communities: make the consumer your marketer
  • Portability: weave your content into their digital life
  • Cater to your audience: OfficeMax recognized that while most of its customers use the Internet as an information source, they also appreciate a novel experience. “We gave people something enticing to do, and they spent a long time with us, an average of seven minutes,” said Thacker.
  • Experiment: Don’t be afraid to experiment with different sites and strategies. “We tried twenty different holiday sites (in 2006) and saw which ones stuck,” Thacker said.

About OfficeMax
OfficeMax, Inc. is one of the world’s largest B2B and B2C office supply chains. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange (OMX), the chain sells to customers in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Its biggest sales season is the annual back-to-school period in its markets. But the chain also sells digital cameras, televisions, and other products that are popular during the holiday season.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Cleveland of Elm PR.

Source: Adweek, PR Newswire, CreativeCow