OfficeMax prepares for Christmas campaign

NAPERVILLE, Ill. With the holiday season underway, OfficeMax has turned to digital agencies Toy and EVB to recreate its successful Elfyourself.com Web site.

The branded microsite allows users to paste pictures of their faces onto dancing elves, add a personal voice greeting, and send it to friends.

Last year, OfficeMax tasked advertising agency Toy with creating 20 microsites with holiday themes to present itself as a gift-buying destination. While sites like Reindeer Arm Wrestling, Don't Shoot Your Eye Out, and North Pole Dancing were part of the campaign, EVB's Elf Yourself site generated the most viral success.

The 2006 Elf Yourself campaign generated 36 million visitors, who created 11 million dancing elves. At one point the site generated 41,000 elf messages per hour, and was ranked the 267 most visited site by Alexa rankings, according to Bob Thacker, senior vice president of marketing for OfficeMax.

"It's a very simple site and it's fun, and it really doesn't try to hard to do too many things," said Jason Zada, executive creative director, co-founder, EVB. "It doesn't take itself too seriously and be over branded, it's giving people what they want and it's very time specific."