Elf Yourself

Where it started

Elf Yourself is an American interactive website where visitors upload faces of themselves or their friends and have the option to post the created video to other sites or save it as a personalized mini-film. Globally, over two billion elves have been created since the application was first introduced in 2006. The video and website were created by Evolution Bureau (EVB), in collaboration with New York company "Toy." for Office Max's holiday season advertising campaign. The Elf Yourself website and advertising campaign first launched for the Christmas holiday season in early December 12, 2006, and has returned each subsequent season. After being contracted by OfficeMax to create multiple websites for their holiday campaign, "Toy." contracted with Evolution Bureau to create a suitable holiday-themed website and application. Evolution Bureau then developed the Elf Yourself application for use with the OfficeMax holiday marketing campaign. The original release featured only one elf, portrayed by Danielle Bárcena, and received 200 hits a second. In later releases, additional elves were added to the application and viewers could upload different images for each elf. Still later, social media applications were added, included those allowing viewers to save and/or download the films they had created through visiting the website. In 2008, OfficeMax partnered with JibJab and added a registration requirement in order to use the site. Traffic dropped to 56 million. JibJab worked to "enhance the performance and distribution of the videos." In 2009, the campaign being run by JibJab, the registration requirement was dropped, and social elements were added. Also in 2009, to further promote the Elf Yourself website, OfficeMax contracted with Tribal DDB and Grand Central Marketing to create a flash mob of 400 dancers dressed in Elf Yourself costumes.