Extreme Viral Success

It's amazing what can make a successful viral marketing campaign. Who would've thought that dancing elves would explode into a digital phenomenon? In 2006, the #3 office product retailer Office Max launched its promotional holiday website ElfYourself.com (only active during the holiday season). This website allows people to put their own face on the body of an animated, dancing elf. Ad Age writer, Jonathan Lemonnier, recently wrote an article about this phenomenon.

















The site gathered some attention in 2006, but nothing compared to the explosion of the site in 2007. It came back online in October 2007 and by December it was ranked 55th among all websites. This season alone, 26.4 million people visited the site. That's 1 out of every 10 Americans! Elf Yourself far surpassed other digital campaigns like Burger King's Subservient Chicken and Whopper Freakout. The chart from Ad Age below compares the Elf Yourself campaign to the Whopper Freakout campaign.


















While the site is fun, it also helped increase brand awareness for Office Max according to Hitwise Research Director, Heather Dougherty. The increase was evident in that 6 out of 20 of the most common search terms included the words "Office Max" for the month of December.
The proof is not only in the numbers, but also in all of the buzz generated by this website. It seemed that the Elves were everywhere you looked during the holiday season.

It's obvious that this site was a viral smash. In fact, it may very well be one of the most successful viral marketing campaigns ever. And all this for less than the price of a 30-second TV spot. So why don't so many companies spend more on viral marketing? I can only wonder.

You can read the whole article here