危 wēi  danger

At the end of 2007 OfficeMax had reduced its advertising budgets but its need to drive footfall into its stores and to its website was ever present.  Its lower budget made it unlikely that traditional marketing channels would meet its frugal needs.   Viral marketing held great appeal but Office Max had no competence in the area.

机 jī opportunity

These lean times forced Bob Thacker, SVP of Advertising and Marketing, to be creative.  He approached his digital agency and asked them to develop a series of viral marketing campaign options.  They built twenty and when confronted with the tough decision of which to launch Thacker launched them all.  One of the twenty, ‘Elf-Yourself’ (click here) was a run-away success and will run this Christmas for the 3^rd year running.  There are even rumors that OfficeMax will start selling Elfs as of next month!

how about…

• Harnessing the low costs of digital campaign launch by launching multiple campaigns?
• Launching those campaigns earlier to allow the market to decide?

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