Viral Friday: Elf Yourself 2008
Viral Friday is the weekly viral video chart of ViralBlog, showing the 5 most popular viral videos, commercials or user-generated videos, carefully selected and ranked by popularity, viral impact & spread.
This weeks Viral Friday #1 position goes to OfficeMax with the new version of Elf Yourself OfficeMax does it again with its highly viral Elf Yourself concept. The runner up spot is for Nokia’s N96 Bruce Lee viral. An impressive video to promote the newest design from the Nokia N96; The Bruce Lee edition. Ozzy Osbourne’s WoW commercial completes this week’s top 3. In this advertisement for World of Warcraft Ozzy Osbourne claims to be the one and only Prince of Darkness.
Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to 5? Go on then, and have a look! We’d like to hear your opinion about the virals. Have fun!
1. Elf Yourself
OfficeMax is bringing back Elf Yourself for its third holiday season where consumers can create and send holiday e-greetings to friends and family featuring photos of their friends, family and pets doing a hilarious elf dance. Consumer anticipation continues to grow as the holidays get closer with thousands of people visiting the site daily according to Quantcast. In 2007, ElfYourself.com attracted 193 million visits in six weeks to become the most viral initiative on record. The site ranked as the No. 1 fastest growing property on the internet and top 1,000 website in 50 countries, according to Alexa Rankings.
2. Nokia N96 Bruce Lee
Nokia introduces her newest cell phone design for the N96 with style. The phone is totally Bruce Lee branded. The phone has Bruce Lee’s photo and signature on the back and is packed with rare photos of the martial art legend. The package also contains some accessories, such as a Bruce Lee doll and a key holder that takes the shape of nunjaku.
There are several accounts that uploaded the video. Together they’re good for more than one million views on YouTube in less then 10 days. There is also another viral video for the campaign in which Bruce Lee lightens up matches with his numjaku.
(Sources: GSM Arena, Unwiredview)
3. Ozzy Osbourne World of Warcraft
In this spot, Ozzy Osbourne claims to be the Prince of Darkness, even in WoW. The Lich King, a character of the WoW game, disagrees on Ozzy’s statement. The commercial was launched simultaneously with another ad for WoW in which Soprano star Steve van Sandt persuades the viewer to join the game of World of Warcraft.
(Source: WoWinsider.com)
4. Heineken: Know The Signs
On November 14th 2008, brewer Heineken has officially launched its first global internet-based responsible drinking campaign entitled ‘Know The Signs‘, to create greater self-awareness amongst Heineken drinkers. To create intrigue around the launch of the campaign, Heineken created an entertaining ‘Hollywood-style’ trailer to introduce the campaign concept and a few of its characters. The trailer is available in different versions, in English, Spanish, Hungarian, and Dutch. The video has been viewed over 200.000 times on different platforms.
(Source: ViralBlog)
5. Singing Lips
In this advertisement for Xbox360′s karaoke game Lips a pair of lips walks around the street, singing Take On Me (which was featured before as the Literal Version on Viral Friday. Coincidence or strategic geniously from Microsoft?). The video is a viral success and has reached almost 400.000 views in 11 days on YouTube.
(Source: AdvertFan)
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There is no doubting the success of the Elf Yourself. I mean, 67 million times people have elved themselves – and that’s an awesome amount!
However, I always felt the link to the brand – Office Max – was rather tedious. Not only in the sense that elves and christmas don’t seem to have much in common with office supplies, but also the way they utilised all those viewers and spread the brand message. I seriously doubt that most people have used the Elf Yourself website will be able to tell who created it.
The fact that they have now given the concept to JibJab and have become nothing more than a sponsor seems to make it an even more pointless exercise.
Hosting all those images and catering for all those views must cost a fair whack of cash and I’m not sure it it worth it to Office Max.
The fact they have decided to team up with another partner seems to suggest that the cost became too much to bare.
Then again, I’m sure JibJab will be able to milk their involvement for all it is worth.
@Daan: You’re right about the direct connection. OfficeMax won’t be getting any – or at least less – direct customers through this viral success.
However, indirect it will generate brand awareness and brand recognition among a big part of the 67 million viewers of the Elf Yourself campaign. And that’s worth a lot more then just the few bucks for the hosting.
Plus, any future projects will accepted easier by the target audience. They are already familiar with the brand OfficeMax. And what about all the email adressess they’ve gathered with this campaign?
I must agree on you that the line between OfficeMax and Christmas Elves is rather thin. But I don’t think its not worth the investment.
That’s exactly what I am questioning though – have they seen an increase in brand awareness?
And will people be familiar with the brand when they do something like this again? Or are they only familiar with the Elf Yourself campaign? The tedious link between the product and concept lie so far apart and with no obvious links to Office Max beyond being a sponsor of it all, I have to be critical and say I don’t believe this is worth the money and effort.
Also, I do believe that creating and running a campaign as extensive as this would go beyond a mere few bucks, as you suggest.
It’s great they’ve harvested all these e-mail addresses, but I’ve never been asked permission if they were allowed to send me any form of email beyond this campaign. So unless they decide to spam everyone, that seems like a big missed opportunity.
Fell out of bed feeling down. This has brighneetd my day!
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Bruce Lee plays ping pong with a nunchaku!…
I will not say very much about this, but just post it for your enjoyment.
It doesn’t really have much of “is it true?” in it – it’s just too unreal. But it has a lot of “it would have been cool if it was true!” whi…
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