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Kiran Aditham
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Kiran Aditham is a Business Management grad from the University of Central Florida, Aditham earned his stripes as a freelance writer in music/arts publishing.

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OfficeMax Invites Consumers to Go Elf Themselves

Written on
December 8th 2006
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by Kiran Aditham  |
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With the post-Black Friday, holiday shopping frenzy kicking into high gear, consumers are invading the malls of America in droves. But one notable locale that hasn’t normally registered high on the radar as a purchasing destination is OfficeMax, one of the top-tier office supply chains in the US which is now clearing up preconceived notions thanks to edgier marketing strategies and a revamped, expanded product line.

It’s not just copiers, file folders and computer wares in OfficeMax’s world anymore. And to prove that, the company has enlisted the services of New York agency Toy to create a unique viral campaign that subtly emphasizes OfficeMax’s new and improved product offering while unleashing a variety of holiday-themed time-killers. “They wanted more than just ads, they wanted content and some branded entertainment that people would seek out,” Justin Gignac, Toy’s art director, tells ADOTAS.

What OfficeMax wants consumers to seek out is a one-stop destination site, cheekily coined Elfyourself.com. With its winter wonderland backdrop, minimal OfficeMax branding and subtle product descriptions, the front page’s main feature is instead a dancing elf whose face you can substitute with an uploaded pic of your own pretty mug—the option to record your own voice messages comes included.

But there is more than meets the eye on this Elfyourself homepage. Scroll further down the page, mouse over the OfficeMax tab, and voila, a menu of links to 20, yes 20 different microsites are at your disposal, each a different execution that ranges from a funny, candid camera mistletoe video (below) to a virtual cook-your-own turkey site.

“We came up with the idea of having 20 gifts from OfficeMax,” Gignac explains. “The great way to reach people is in the office, especially around this time of year, people are trying to reconnect and send e-cards and goofy things to their friends and family around the holidays. So why not tap into that instinct and give people fun sites and fun content to send around.”

Ambitious and fun as it seems, ElfYourself was actually 2 ½ months in the making before if officially went live on Monday, November 27th. The conceptual story goes as this. Prior to launching its fall “Schooled” campaign, which was a takeoff on MTV’s Punk’d, OfficeMax was thinking ahead and approached Toy to create an all-out entertainment experience to christen the winter season. “I think they realized that they want stuff that the consumers are going to want to engage in—a regular television ad probably isn’t going to cut it anymore. Especially if you can create something that people are going to seek out, then you know for a fact that they’re going to be engaged with the brand for at least a little bit of time instead of just having the commercial on in the background while they’re watching TV. So, we were given that challenge.”



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