"Go Elf Yourself". No, this is not me being rude and showing the Scrooge side of Christmas. This is Office Max's way of providing social media in a convenient way to the consumer. In 2006, Office Max teamed up with the ecard provider, JibJab, and created a new exciting way to send an ecard for the holiday season.
Elf Yourself, allows the consumer to upload pictures from their own computer while personalizing an electronic holiday card. You begin by choosing the amount of people (or pets) that you would like to include in the card. You then upload your personal pictures and begin cropping them to fit the Elf's face. After completion, you just sit back and watch the entertainment of the elf's dancing to a holiday tune.
"The campaign, created by New York-based independent agency Toy and San Francisco-based EVB, led to the creation of more than 122 million elves during that holiday season. It increased site traffic and generated a number of wannabes and spin offs, driving sales and brand awareness, according to the judges." (Elf Yourself) Office Max utilized various social media outlets and made this feature available on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.
Office Max used this exposure to their benefit. After you created your ecard, they offered the service of emailing the ecard to friends and family, creating a different ecard that you could get printed off and mailed to your residence. They also listed the many other services that Office Max offers as far as holiday cards, merchandise specials, and their newly added postal service. By promoting these, they were able to accumulate a word of mouth advertisement and free publicity. Before they knew, the term "Go Elf Yourself" was an expression of every one's holiday spirit.
I think that everyone has seen or heard of Elf Yourself during the holiday season now. Office Max really knew what they were doing when they developed this campaign. They could have left it with inserting a face into the hole of the elf's face but they took it one setp further and added music and dancing which I believe is what sparked such a frenzy over the web based cards. These are a lot of fun and something that I believe will be around year after year.
ReplyDeleteI have been on Jib Jab and created little funny e-cards before. Its been a long time since this idea launched and people are still participating in them today. Just the other day, my friend made a jib jab using justin bieber and her face. It was comedy. I never really "elfed" myself with Office Max's program, but I do think it's a great way to attract customers and give people some interaction. When researching successful campaigns, this marketing idea came up in several searches. Great pick!
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely a GREAT social media marketing campaign. Throughout the holidays i receive several e-cards from family members that took the time out to Elf themselves. This was a very funny campaign and got people to actually take time out of their days to uploads pictures and create a e-cards. Office Max definitely did a great job with this campaign. Awesome Post!
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