Zuckerberg, Assange and Palin Star in This Year’s “Elf Yourself” [VIDEO]

It’s that time of year again, which means that OfficeMax and JibJab are back with a video featuring famous people of 2010 getting themselves elfed.

Reacting to zeitgeist, this year’s lineup includes Sarah Palin, Julian Assange, President Obama, Snooki and, of course, Mark Zuckerberg — or at least their heads superimposed over someone’s dancing bodies. Palin is no stranger to being Elfed; she appeared in a 2008 holiday video, along with John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Obama and Mitt Romney. (To see some Mashable staffers getting elfed, click above.)

OfficeMax introduced Elf Yourself in 2006. Since then, the viral campaign has become a holiday tradition. The retailer claims users have created more than 416 million customized elves. OfficeMax attempted to extend the popularity of the franchise with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade tie-in this year, complete with an ElfYourself float. Last year, the company also introduced some social media hooks for the app, including the ability to tweet a link to your creation or post it to your Facebook wall.

So, does any of this encourage you to buy stuff at OfficeMax? In an interview with eMarketer earlier this year, Julie Krueger, senior vice president of e-commerce and direct marketing at OfficeMax, said ElfYourself was a “gift from OfficeMax to our consumer” and prompts purchases at the retailer via the ElfYourself site. David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at interactive marketing firm 360i, says that even if there’s no logical connection to anything OfficeMax sells, the program works from a name-recognition standpoint. “It gets their name out there,” says Berkowitz. “The whole goal is to get exposure to people who aren’t actively thinking about office products.”