Viral success...but has it built a brand?

Once again, OfficeMax has released the ElfYourself greeting card builder and the social networking sites are flooding with everyone's hilarious creations.

ElfYourself is a simple, yet brilliant tool that lets you upload the faces of up to five friends into an interface. The photos become the faces of a bunch of elves. It then spits out a "greeting card" where your elves dance around the screen to a disco version of a holiday song - complete with disco dance floor, funky moves and camera angles. The ElfYourself is sure to get a chuckle from anyone who sees it. At the end of the sequence, you are given the opportunity to click and purchase holiday gifts (mugs, shirts, etc.) with your elf's face on i t from Office Max.

The ElfYourself site was launched back in 2006 by OfficeMax and reappears every holiday season with much anticipation and exponential usage - as a recurring "viral" website, it is probably one of, if not the most successful (in my opinion).

After a drop off in popularity last year, the added integration into Facebook and Twitter has caused a resurgence. OfficeMax's agency, Tribal DDB, also organized a flash mob of elves in New York to generate additional hype.

My question of course is - has it helped to build the OfficeMax brand; and more importantly, does it generate sales?

OfficeMax does provide a call to action to buy swag after watching the greeting card. The creator can also purchase a copy of the card for $4.99 to keep beyond the holidays.

I've searched the 'net trying to find out, but a Google search returns articles with lots of stats on views / hits but nothing about sales or monetization.

OfficeMax has hit a homerun with their fun take on the traditional e-card but I am dying to know what it cost them to launch/promote and if it has had any real impact on business... and more importantly, does it really matter in this case? Maybe OfficeMax just wants to spread some holiday cheer!