OfficeMax's Elf Yourself Reaches 193 Million Visitors

Before we get too far away from discussing this season's holiday promotions, I wanted to report back to you on the final stats I received on the highly successful Elf Yourself.com viral marketing campaign created for OfficeMax. I first wrote this post on the promotion at the beginning of December and then in my latest post on it I shared with you the mid-campaign results. At that time they were hoping to reach 100 million visitors by the end of the campaign.

Well Elf Yourself was an even bigger success then what they hoped for. They actually reached 193 million visitors! Almost twice the anticipated amount. Beth McDowell, who's working with EVB in San Francisco, the company that created the campaign along with partner agency Toy in New York,  shared with me the following:

ElfYourself.com ended on January 2, 2008 and attracted a remarkable number of consumers to the OfficeMax holiday site this season. Next year, there are no definite plans, but after this year's success, it's quite possible Elf Yourself will return for the 2008 holiday season. Below are the final totals for ElfYourself.com.

Elf Yourself 2007 (11/20/07 to 1/2/08)
- Over 193 million people visited the site
- Over 123 million elves were created
- 60 elves were created per second at its peak
- Users spent a combined average of 2,600 years on the site
- Ranked #51 most visited website on the web (HitWise Intelligence)
- Ranked #1 "Movers & Shakers" (Alexa Rankings)
- Featured on CNN American Morning, ABC World News, Good Morning America, TODAY Show, TNT Sportscast, Fox News, TBS & Rosie O'Donnell's Blog.

AdWeek's Brian Morrissey wrote this article last week on viral marketing which included Elf Yourself, but he didn't have these final numbers yet. In the article he states that the secret to the success of this campaign was in keeping it simple and I can't agree with him more. Brian's got this quote in his article from Bob Thacker, svp of marketing at OfficeMax "Our lives are already complicated. I can't imagine anything online wants to be complicated. Eighty-year-old women are sending these out and 8-year-olds are doing it.

Case in point is the experience I had this past New Year's weekend while visiting my parents, who by the way don't have Internet access in their new home. We had gone over to my sister's house and she showed them the Elf I did of myself which they thought was hysterical and they wanted to make some.

So, we all sat in front of my sister's computer for the next hour or so making up more elves that included my parents, my sisters and their husbands, as well as my aunt and uncle. We then sent a copy to my aunt and uncle (who have Internet access, but not too sure of this email thing), got them on the phone and directed them on how to open the email and then got to listen in as they watched it. They loved it and proceeded to send it on to their kids (my cousins) and so on. Next thing I knew I was receiving emails from several upset relatives wanting to know "Donna, what happened to the elves?" because the website had been taken down.

It's anyone's guess what interactive promotion will be famous next holiday season. For now anyhow the Elves are going to be hard to beat.

Comments

[Frances Gambelli]

I wish I could just go "elf" myself again. It was hysterical. Looking forward to next year's promo.

[Ryan]

It sounds like the viral marketing campaign was a hit! Great article Donna - I've been interested in the campaign, and it is nice to see some actual result numbers from a source directly involved.

I'm wondering about the ROI on the campaign though...they attracted a lot of viewers, but did they get a decent return on the amount they spent? I read an article in "Marketing News" (put out by the AMA) and it mentions that "1/3 of those that visited...were influenced to shop at OfficeMax". With 193 million visitors, they influenced over 64 million people to shop---this seems like a huge number for one campaign!

The questions however are a) How many of the "influenced" translated into "customers", and b) How much profit was earned off of the new "customers". A third question would be how much did the campaign help OfficeMax's brand awareness, which was apparently the main point to the campaign.

Any information on this? =-) If so, definitely send me an email, I'd love to know!

[Donna DeClemente]

Hi Ryan, I recently attended PMA's Annual Integrated Marketing Conference where OfficeMax’s SVP of Marketing/Advertising, Bob Thacker, spoke. Here's some additional info that he shared with us:

Their goal was to first make friends and then have them become part of the brand. His belief is that companies need to take risks however they need to have patience and may not always see an immediate ROI. The Elf Yourself viral campaign is a great example of taking risks. OfficeMax took their entire holiday marketing budget and decided to move it online with a strategy to create a gift that everyone could enjoy. The holiday season isn’t the biggest selling time of year in their category; back-to-school is king. So, the risk was a little less, but still this was a pretty bold move.

The OfficeMax Elf Yourself program was one of about a dozen different online games that they created that first year in 2006 and wasn’t the most expensive. It was however the one that really hit big with consumers as well as the media and went on to become the largest viral campaign ever. Bob also shared with us that 47% of those surveyed did connect the OfficeMax brand with the elves and that 33% actually bought product at OfficeMax. So I thought I'd pass this info along.

[quinn]

donna do u have kids?