Elf Yourself a hit all over again
Elf Yourself, the cute ecard app from Office Max returned again this Christmas. Like a sleeper TV hit, the results the second time round were huge. AdAge have the figures.
- In 2006, they had around 2million visitors creating 11 million elves.
- In 2007, they had 26.4 million people creating 123 million elves
- In October 2007, the Hitwsie ranking for the site was below 400k. By December it was at No 55 in most popular sites.
- 6 out of the 20 top search terms that drove to the site included the words ‘Office Max’ so brand awareness was getting through.
- The budget was less than an average TV ad
- 40% of visitors were 55 and older according to Hitwise
The piece offers three success factors to making this a hit:
- Allow for personalisation
- don’t discount the older audience
- Make it fun
I’d add one more for this - build on a previous success. People had fun last year and were likely to pass it along and the blog pieces were out there already so people could find out about it. Volvo did this with a Pirates of the Caribbean; there’s no need to always build something new, leveraging what works is a good way to go.
Tags: elf-yourself, office-maxRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Engaging the Customer, Fun and Games, Metrics and Research
1 opinion for Elf Yourself a hit all over again
Liz Fuller
Jan 23, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Hi Rachel
I admit it - I “elfed myself”. It only took a few minutes and it was a lot of fun. I even took advantage of their option to make my elf “speak”. I wasn’t expecting them to turn my voice into an “elf voice” though!
It was a great way to spread their ad as I sent it out to several people - and received some as well.
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