Yes, I am comfortable with my criticism of the OfficeMax elf campaign. It was an attention-getter, but once you consider that they didn’t leverage it to increase sales, that it didn’t even drive traffic to OfficeMax.com, and that people are having a difficult time even recalling which company was behind it (see Linda’s comment above), I think my points are valid. It really hasn’t done much for their brand and it’s clear that it hasn’t done anything for the bottom line.

This isn’t meant to be mean-spirited. I like the campaign. But from a marketing perspective, it’s been a failure. They can turn it around next year with better planning — and they should — but will they?

Had the campaign flopped, it would’ve been more forgivable (”So, they tried something new and it didn’t work… No harm done. It didn’t cost them much”). But that wasn’t the case. They ran the same exact campaign in 2006 and it was a hit. They knew it was going to be a success for Christmas 2007, and still, they did nothing. So, it had about the same effect as a single banner ad buy on a heavily trafficked site. Not much.

It’s not about Q3-vs-Q4, it’s about Q406-vs-Q407.

Kevin Horne did some more digging and here’s what he found:

“…OfficeMax just reported its financials, with retail sales dropping nearly $50 million in Q4 compared to same period 2006. We had sort of calculated those Elves would raise sales by $5 million. Hmmm.

“Also in February, Staples bid $3.7 billion for Corporate Express. Will OfficeMax make it to the end of the year without a merger? I hear the Elves are getting nervous.”

Also, the big quarter for office supplies is Q3 (think: back to school), so it’s natural for Q4 for drop.

Just blogged about it today.

Apart from incorporating the elves year-round into TV and print ads (ick), how can this be achieved?

Eventually these elves will have to retire, I can’t imagine people getting so giddy over this again next year.

And I agree with you: there is a way they could’ve positioned as a gift, tied it in with photos, or whatever. That’s the job of a good agency, right? To make selling seem less like selling and more like a bright shiny idea at the right place at the perfect time.

But boy, it’d have to be subtle.

For what is essentially a PR/sponsorship/brand play, I’d guard against clients trying to be too overt with a bunch of sales conversion funnels. It turns people off — consumers know that they’re being sold to, that they’re being advertised to. Consumers are very sophisticated, and their radars go up pretty quick.

Excellent question!

Perhaps I wasn’t clear about why this is so wasteful. I’m not at all bothered by whatever it is they paid Toy New York to develop the campaign. (Actually, that same agency did NINETEEN other holiday-themed sites for OfficeMax, but Elf Yourself was the only one that took off.) It’s wonderful that their investment in paid off in traffic, but OfficeMax never took advantage of it. That’s offensive.

Why’s it offensive? Because the same site was a HUGE hit (traffic-wise) the year before!

This isn’t exactly lightning striking twice in the same spot. OfficeMax knew Elf Yourself was going to get tons of attention, yet they did exactly the same thing they did the year before: Nothing.

What this campaign has really cost OfficeMax so far amounts to untold millions in revenue — money they’d have earned had they bothered to turn this into a real campaign.

The agency did its job. Their job was to build something cool and interactive. Since there was obviously no product tie-in or branding direction (beyond a logo and “brought to you by”), they didn’t convert customers. There was no elf-related landing page.

Basically, it was an agency-driven creative effort with no marketing behind it. That’s not a marketing campaign. It’s not even a branding campaign. It’s an elf campaign.

Is that Monday Morning Quarterbacking? Absolutely. But that’s a big part of what we do as a consultancy; we look for flaws in strategy, disconnects between channels, identify missed opportunities, and make sure they don’t happen again.

I really like your comparison to a corporate holiday card. Yes, you’re definitely right. The hard sell doesn’t work, and they’d have been interrupting the experience if it were framed that way. But to suggest there aren’t ways to integrate some sort of holiday discount or promotion — not even a proper landing page for people who clicked through from ElfYourself.com — is a VERY costly assumption to make.

Had they planned this according to customer motivations, they could have turned a healthy percentage of elves into brand advocates.

How about a deal on last-minute digital camera purchases? Wouldn’t that work with the frame of mind most of these visitors are in (thinking of loved ones and uploading their pictures)?*

Would that really be so tacky? From an elf?

*If they do this next year, you heard it here first.

Rather, I imagine they saw it as an unexpectedly popular holiday card to its customers — a nice gesture that says “OfficeMax is a place that thinks fun is fun.”

And I’d bet that someone — several someones — suggested they add a tie-in. And the idea was shot down for the same reason you don’t put a coupon in your corporate holiday cards or talk business at the holiday party: it’s in bad taste. Then you’re talking about a potentially negative brand experience, rather than laying the groundwork for better days ahead.

But we’re all just Monday Morning Quarterbacks, aren’t we? How many of us created viral campaigns that hit Outbreak status?

Or how’s about a prize “Elf in store” campaign. Email out the images of fifty elves a month, if that elf shows up at the checkout give them $100 voucher. Maybe even get something going on Facebook by enabling a “Name the Elf” campaign so friends of published elves could get a chance at the vouchers.

I’m sure readers of this page could come up with another ten ideas each for how OfficeMax should have been harvesting the dollars the whole year through. Oops. Big Ooops. Enormous.

I heard of Elf Yourself because my thirteen year-old niece showed me (will she be shopping at Office Max anytime soon?), and I had no inkling Office Max was behind it.

But the discussion was great. I’m just getting into SEO and reading stuff like this is better than any book on the topic.

Thanks!

To hear any VP of Marketing and Advertising state “We weren’t looking for sales” should possibly be translated as “D’oh”.

It’s great to look for differentiation in a competitive market but who wants to be known as the ‘quirky guys who don’t sell very much’

I would also have to question how much ‘added value’ the design agency gave OfficeMax. A case of “give them what they want….not what they need” perhaps? Who knows.

Either way – my friends enjoyed the Dancing Elves so thanks Starbucks…Staples….whoever.

Linda – No way. The “link bait and switch” would add insult to elfery (so to say). The point is that they haven’t planned on using the elves in any persuasion scenarios. In other words, they haven’t created segues to help entice would-be customers into buying mode. When people are looking for elves and they wind up with a page about pomegranates — or, in this case, office supplies — they bounce.

Joel & Nethy – Amazing how marketers choose not to see wasted opportunity as wasted money, isn’t it? Opportunity cost matters. A lot.

How many ad campaigns are cargo cults?

The Australian Open (tennis) had many ‘major sponsors.’ Some I believe bought value. Others bought nothing. They probablly all think the belong in group 1.

–IBM, Major Sponsor–
Among a few other things, they ran the website. Live action, results stats, etc. A great example of what the net is capable of now that it wasn’t last year. They are saying ‘we can do things others can’t’. It’s not Plato but it’s at least coherent.

–KIA Motor, Majorist Sponsor–
They had their logo in the most visible places. The screens & nets & billboards. They had some cars around the complex. What do they have to say: “KIA Motors.” That’s it. The players all thank them live after the most viewed matches. But they have nothing to say. They just want you to see their logo and sneek in and grab some airtime.

Kia renewed their sponsorship for the long term.

On the SEO issue…

Perhaps OM should pull a “link bait and switch”?
Basically set up a 301-redirect from elfyourself.com to officemax.com and that will forward all the link juice from EY to OM, instead of just linking to it?

People don’t have to search for anything elf related for Office Max to see benefit. Because OfficeMax.com has a strong new link pointing to their site, they should improve in ranking for terms they want to rank for, like “office supplies”.

You can see a list of sites that links to OfficeMax with a Yahoo tool. They list the links by importance/strength. The one from ElfYourself is #1:

http://tinyurl.com/342qy7

It would certainly help more if the links weren’t about cute elfs, and more relevant to Office Max’s business But they should eventually benefit, it takes a while for links to age & kick in.

Excellent article, I certainly agree with the premise. Lots of companies just want to get in on “that whole social-viral-digg media” thing no matter the cost/benefit.

Mark: So far, two online editors, someone from a top e-tailer, someone with a hot interactive agency, and a search engine marketer have left comments here. I’m not sure what percentage of that 24.6 million we represent, but we can only buy so many office supplies. And yes, HERE we are (on GrokDotCom not OfficeMax.com) This is about “who” not “how many.”

Ben: Great point about the email addresses! I definitely should have mentioned that. Yes, it’s great to have all those email addresses — in theory. This is where Seth Godin’s concept of Permission Marketing comes in. How much permission is really involved here? Yes, you’ve agreed to give OfficeMax your email address, but under false pretense. Not that having 24.6 million visitors means that they got the same number of email addresses, but whatever the number is, it’s not nearly the same level of permission. The people who exchanged their email addy in order to elf themselves have, whether or not they realize it, given OfficeMax permission to s p a m them. At least it will feel like s p a m if they were never interested in office supplies to begin with.

Adam: Does Google rank according to the Transitive Property? Wouldn’t that just count as one single link (the one from ElfYourself.com), not 30k? Regardless, getting people to shop for office supplies once they’re searching for elves is the real challenge. And aside from the splash page that’s up right now, which directs people to OfficeMax.com, there’s nothing luring people to shop. No elves. No discounts. Just a few words, a logo, and a link.

Hi Shari. It’s not the traffic, it’s 30,000 sites linking to Elf Yourself. Elf Yourself, in turn, links to OfficeMax.com. Search engines base a sites’ rankings largely on the amount of other sites that link to them. The more sites that link to the sites that link to you, the better. Clear as mud now?

I’m still doubtful the campaign overall will generate a positive ROI, but Office Max should see some benefit to their search engine rankings.