The closer we get to Super Bowl LIX, predictions start piling up like players on the field. Guessing whether the Chiefs or the Eagles will prove victorious? That’s fun. So is making your case for who gets picked as MVP. For publishers, though, the question of whether your site will hold up in the days leading up to game day and afterward is not a bet you want to lose.
Unlike other marquee moments in sports throughout the year, Super Bowl Sunday is somewhat unique in how it attracts audiences across a range of interests. There are plenty of people who want to get in-depth reporting on the game itself, of course, but there’s often nearly as much interest in the ads, which are covered across both consumer and B2B publications. The halftime show, meanwhile, is a cultural event all its own.
Publishers were traditionally limited in covering the Super Bowl Sunday through leadup and post-game stories when print was their primary channel. As more digital devices enter the home, though, audiences aren’t just tuning into TV when the action happens. Seven in ten people will engage with secondary media platforms beyond their primary source during the Big Game—not only social platforms but liveblogging, embedded video, and other forms of real-time reporting on publisher sites.
This means media organizations that think strategically have an incredible opportunity to not only drive huge engagement, but potentially add subscribers and grow their revenue through a host of sponsorship and advertising programs.
Assuming, of course, that nothing goes horribly wrong.
The top Super Bowl media upsets to avoid
Super Bowl Sunday is always full of surprises, from the Giants’ famous upset win against the Patriots to the “wardrobe malfunction” amid the 2004 halftime Show. What you want to avoid is an unexpected technology fail that makes it difficult to bring those kinds of stories to your audience.
The answer isn’t moving to a digital experience platform (DXP), which can be complex, expensive, and inflexible. An open-source CMS solution will give you a best-of-breed platform to provide the best digital experience, especially when you develop a solid business strategy to support it.
Think of it this way: football coaches have a long history of creating playbooks that map out all the potential game-day scenarios and how their team can respond. If you’re hoping Super Bowl LIX will contribute to your business goals, it’s time to do the same thing.
Make sure you’re prepared when:
1. Your Super Bowl marketing campaign leads to a dead-end
More than 203 million adults are expected to watch the Super Bowl on Feb. 9. Those viewers are forecast to collectively spend $18.6 billion on food, team apparel, and other merchandise. They could also decide to subscribe to a publication that offers them great content associated with the game. As a result, publishers have sometimes chosen to market their own product as well as their clients’.
Running an ad campaign might not be as expensive as securing a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl broadcast, but it represents a big investment. That can all go down the drain—along with any chance of growing your engagement and subscriber base—if the traffic you generate leads to slow page loads and spikes that bring down your site.
Rather than move to a resource-intensive DXP that can’t easily scale, publishers that grow beyond a million monthly pageviews should opt for a platform that provides performance and peace of mind. That way, all marketing efforts achieve the expected return on investment.
2. Your site crashes during the moments of truth
When audiences come to your publication for the latest score and expert commentary, they’re like Taylor Swift showing up to cheer on Travis Kelce: they don’t want to miss a single thing. That makes scalability and reliability critical to avoid disappointing readers and viewers.
News organizations like Time.com have run the best play here—and it even involves Taylor Swift. Readers have always scooped up print copies of its “Person of the Year” issue in droves, but now there’s a similar stampede online. When Time.com chose Swift for Person of the Year, the team knew the site was soon going to be flooded with Swifties devouring every word.
Moving off a dated, inflexible publishing platform to WordPress VIP enabled Time.com to handle more than 100,000 requests per second. That’s Super Bowl-level scale, so your next step should be to follow the same approach.
3. You lack the extended team resources
You may not see them on game day, but every NFL team has a host of employees who work behind the scenes supporting players and coaches. These assistants, trainers, and chefs provide all the extra support that keeps the team at its best.
Like NFL teams, publishers can position themselves for success by bringing on additional help, especially when migrating a CMS. There’s no reason to try and manage every aspect of these projects on your own, which can often lead to longer timelines and additional headaches.
Instead, look for expert agency partners who have a proven track record in managing the shift to a platform like WordPress VIP, who can give migrations the focus, attention, and expertise they deserve. You’ll avoid putting the project on the back burner as other priorities emerge, and you can enjoy full confidence that the end result will deliver. Good partners will also allow you to build faster vs. implementing a DXP, simplify maintenance, and accelerate innovation.
4. You don’t conduct the right drills
The top NFL players run through ladders with footwork patterns like high knees and side shuffles. That gives them the agility required to fend off opposing teams that seem to come out of nowhere. Publishers need to be just as ready, but it’s not always clear how traffic patterns will evolve as your site grows.
This is why WordPress VIP not only provides a platform but a professional services team that can simulate the spikes that you’re going to see for an event like the Super Bowl, and get everything in order to make sure there are no gaps or holes. Without third-party support or support that fails to meet your expectations, you wind up like an NFL player getting tackled for a loss.
5. You get dealt a costly penalty
Defensive fouls and special teams errors are bad, but they don’t halt the activity on the field for long. Far worse is when publishers pay their technology vendor for support, only to discover they’ll have to shell out additional fees based on continually upgrading a server.
Invest with a technology provider that has the infrastructure and people in place to ensure business continuity without any “gotcha” fees. That’s money that can go back into other areas that improve the experience you’re offering your audience.
6. You don’t anticipate emerging innovations in storytelling
Many publishers now run sophisticated multimedia production units that rival some of the world’s top broadcasters. They have reporters who build their coverage publicly, in real time, on social media, and with liveblogging tools. Artificial intelligence (AI) is bound to open up even more possibilities in adding depth to coverage of the Super Bowl and other major news events.
Don’t let your publishing platform hold you back. DXPs, for example, often come as one-size-fits-all packages, or require extra effort to scope out and evaluate composable solutions. Choose a CMS that not only gives you the right scale, performance, and support, but an array of plugins and integrations you can access through your vendor’s wider ecosystem.
7. You don’t have adequate defense
Cybercriminals love moments like Super Bowl Sunday, where they can target publishers and other large entities with attacks that cripple their business and potentially steal data.
Security shouldn’t be seen as an afterthought or an add-on to your CMS. A truly enterprise-grade platform will offer DDoS protection, penetration testing, SOC certifications, and more capabilities.
Make Super Bowl LIX (and beyond) a publishing win
Vince Lombardi said it best: “If we chase perfection, we can attain excellence.”There will always be technical challenges in publishing, and not just amid key moments like Super Bowl Sunday. Optimizing your site for success early on, however, is the best way to become a champion–within the media sector and anywhere else.
Shane Schick, Founder—360 Magazine
Shane Schick is a longtime technology journalist serving business leaders ranging from CIOs and CMOs to CEOs. His work has appeared in Yahoo Finance, the Globe & Mail and many other publications. Shane is currently the founder of a customer experience design publication called 360 Magazine. He lives in Toronto.