The OfficeMax dancing elf is back for the holidays again this year. While attending PROMOLive's conference this past September I wrote a post about a session that Bill Hanekamp, CEO of The Well Advertising did about creating micro-sites and viral marketing campaigns. Bill showed us the ElfYourself microcsite OfficeMax created last holiday season in which he said had received 36 million visits in 5 weeks with 10 elfings per seconds tracked. OfficeMax said 11 million elves were created last year and even though they didn't keep the site up long after the holidays, online searches continued throughout the year that would find a page with a promise that the elf would be back for an encore this holiday season.
The 2007 customizable ElfYourself.com microsite is now up and running where visitors can upload a photo of themselves, crop it to fit their face on an elf's body and then watch themselves dance. The updates this year include new video footage and music, more elaborate dance moves, personalized voice capabilities and the ability to add three friends to create a band of four elves. Plus there's a totally separate microsite at ScroogeYourself.com which features a dancing scrooge for those grouches that prefer humbugs over elves this holiday season (a bit similar to the Naughty and Nice choices Time Warner gave us with the Fred Claus campaign).
"ElfYourself -- and now ScroogeYourself -- is our way of bringing a little light-hearted fun to family and friends during the holiday season." said Ryan Vero, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer at OfficeMax, "It's easy to get caught up in the grind and stress of getting your holiday 'to do's' accomplished, but these two digital characters help people spread cheer and keep the season bright."
Once visitors upload their photos to the microsite they can then record a message through a special toll-free phone number. The face (or faces) is then attached to an animated elf body, the voice is processed to sound elf-like and the result is a dancing and talking elves that can be emailed to family and friends, or posted to personal web sites or blogs. Here's my dancing elf to check out.
OfficeMax is also featuring in-store promotional materials that tie in with the ElfYourself interactive promotion as well as integrating the campaign into their website. The promotion's goal is to create awareness of their holiday gift selections especially the technology and digital photo gift bundles as well as the personalized calendars and gift cards.
OfficeMax is also bringing back nine online holiday games that were introduced during last year's holiday campaign which I've included here to check out a play as well. 
Reindeer Arm Wrestling
Roast A Turkey
Greetings from the North Pole
Shake the Globe
Yes I'm Working
Don't Shoot Your Eye Out
Save the Snowman
Faux Charity Donation Generator
North Pole Dancing
ElfYourself and ScroogeYourself holiday micro-sites were concepted, designed and produced for by advertising agency Toy NY, along with their interactive partner EVB. Last year Toy NY created 20 holiday web sites for OfficeMax and regard ElfYourself.com as its most successful e-card they've ever developed.
This is hysterical. By the way, your site looks great and so informative.
Posted by: Fran Gambelli | December 17, 2007 at 06:47 PM