OfficeMax Continues to 'Elf' Itself

OfficeMax revived its "Elf Yourself" campaign for a fifth year during the 2010 holiday season. The cavorting characters from the hugely successful ElfYourself.com -- which lets users insert their faces onto elf bodies to create customized holiday greetings (see "OfficeMax Employs 'Elf' Help" in Related Articles) -- were depicted in stores on endcap headers, ceiling signs and window clings.The website's return was heralded as early as November with a countdown clock to "The North Pole's Hottest Site" positioned on OfficeMax's home page, which also offered links to "gifts" sorted by price limit and was strewn with elves, snowflakes, wreathes and other holiday-themed imagery. Consumers were invited to sign up for text or email alerts that would notify them when the site finally went live, as well as provide "Elftastic" deals. A related "Elfmas Town" Facebook application let consumers "play games to win big savings." To officially launch the website, OfficeMax secured a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. "We had 40 million people see dancing elves reminding them that it's time to go 'Elf Yourself' again," said Bob Thacker, OfficeMax's senior vice president-marketing and advertising, while speaking at the National Retail Federation's recent "Big Show" in New York. (See "NRF Show 2011 Overview.")For OfficeMax, the "Elf Yourself" campaign "is like the Christmas tree: you bring it out and you have the old ornaments that you love, but you also add new ones every year, and so we change dances and do outrageous things to try to make sure the world really knows about it," Thacker said. "We realized that if you can get a Christmas tradition and people love it, they come back to it." Thacker credits the campaign for successfully connecting the seemingly disparate worlds of holiday gifting and office supplies. "You say 'Christmas,' and office products are not usually the first thing people say they're going to buy," he said. Not only has the campaign worked as a branding tool by helping people associate OfficeMax with Christmas -- $100 million worth of free PR, Thacker gushed -- it also has provided income through the sale of related merchandise. "It generated enough revenue that it completely pays for itself and makes a profit," he said. Elsewhere in seasonal activity, customized pallets and floorstands from such brands as Sanford's Sharpie and 3M's Scotch added to the holiday atmosphere by sporting the rest of the chain's holiday template, which included a dominant teal color dotted with pine tree branches and red banners carrying messages such as "Savings So Bright."Among account-specific promotions, 3M again offered a free holiday Post-it notepad with purchase of two select Post-it or Scotch products. Pallet displays for the merchandise carried tearpad forms with redemption instructions. (See "OfficeMax Values Its Elves.")Among holiday circular offers, the chain promised:$20 or $50 for trade-ins with purchase of select Hewlett-Packard printers. (An earlier promotion included select Brother printers.)a free 10-pack of Procter & Gamble's Duracell batteries with purchase of $50 in HP ink.20% back in MaxPerks Bonus Rewards (or, earlier, a $20 store gift card) with purchase of two toner cartridges from the same national brand. a free Brother label maker with purchase of a printer from the brand.a free camera case and SanDisk two-gigabyte SD memory card with purchase of a Canon PowerShot camera. a $20 store card with purchase of two HP toner cartridges.a free camera case and memory card with the combined purchase of a Kodak mini-video camera and EasyShare digital camera.free "starter kits" with purchase of select Vivitar digital cameras. a free 27-ounce bag of Mars Inc.'s M&M's with purchase of $40 in national-brand ink.a free exclusive carrying case with purchase of an HTCD Evo or Samsung Epic smartphone.The chain additionally touted the availability of exclusive coupons online, inviting consumers to sign up to receive them by email or text message. In recent email activity, the retailer spotlighted electronics from brands such as:Samsung, Acer, Kodak, Canon, Logitech, APC and Magellan as "Year End Blowout Deals." Vizio, Toshiba, Kodak, HP and Lowepro as "Gifts they really want." Asus, Acer, Kodak, HP, Toshiba, Kingston, Epson, Ferver, Adelfina and Sony Vaio in anticipation of "Cyber Monday" on Nov. 29.Toshiba, Acer, Vizio, Canon, HP, Garmin, Kingston, Bush and private-label OfficeMax prior to Black Friday. The retailer let consumers sign up to get a wakeup call that day from "the OfficeMax elf."Nintendo's DSi and Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360 for "gamers on your list."

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