In our partnership with Twitter, #NFLBlitz set out to be an informative, engaging, and entertaining 30-minute football live-stream targeted for, but not limited to the casual fan. We took advantage of the Twitter platform as a vehicle for real-time conversation and also a stage to get to know players under the helmet--talk about what they care about and what initiatives they stand for. The goal was to produce mobile-minded, entertaining, and memorable segments--allowing our audience to not only learn something compelling, but also retain the information because it was charming and fun. The ultimate goal was to entertain an avid fan by revealing the human and personal experience that you can't get from talking strategy or X's & O's, yet also delighting the casual fan by teaching them about football thru entertainment.
Our strategy was to approach every topic and segment differently than the conventional. Because we are not a news program, our focus was to advance the narrative and have a meaningful conversation about the effect or fallout of the news. We tapped into conversations and opinions of passionate fans, not only asking them to join in our conversation, but we inserted ourselves into what they were already talking about. We also regularly sourced fan/audience opinions to tee up or punctuate discussions and debates.
For example, when news broke on the signing of QB Brandon Weeden this season, we took a deeper dive into the social conversation to unearth a different story. Turns out, fan were not talking about Weeden, they were actually talking about Colin Kaepernick. Take a look at our Word Cloud.
During interviews with current players, our goal was to learn something new about them, be it a hidden talent like Rams OG Jamon Brown or giving them a platform to show off the lighter side of their personality. Chargers S Tre Boston was a regular on #NFLBlitz, but in his very first appearance on Halloween, he was game to dress up as a "Twitter Troll" to read and respond to mean tweets about himself.
With our talent roster, we created custom segments showcasing their personality and knowledge. Some of our more successful recurring segments included "ABC With MJD", "Carr's Keys", and "Willie Willie". We generally kept the tone light, but we still engaged in honest and compelling conversations when necessary. In preparation for Super Bowl LII, Reggie Wayne shared coveted intel about the Patriots Secret To Success. Though, more often than not, we created segments to have fun. When we had legendary Patriots Ty Law and Willie McGinest on our set together, we threw out the conventional questions and produced a memorable and light-hearted segment called Patriot Games.
Speaking of light-hearted, we developed a weekly segment titled "GIF It To Me" which highlights fan reactions in GIF form, to trending topics and viral videos. We dare you not to chuckle.
At Super Bowl LII, the best and brightest starts like JJ Watt and Eli Manning tackled #NFLBlitz in Minnesota, while Odell Beckham, Jr. graced us with his charm and style on the 10th Annual NFL Honors Red Carpet.
The key component we are most proud of, are our "Infographics" (Eli Manning Infographic & Patriots Infographic)--full-color graphics with interesting imagery and bold text. Thought-provoking content with a mobile-minded presentation that is truly unique to our live stream.
We are extremely proud of #NFLBlitz and how it performed this season. We experienced a strong start in terms of Uniques, AMAs, and Max Concurrent viewers and held our audience all season. We saw peaks in our viewership during the playoffs and also the week of Super Bowl LII when we were on location in Minneapolis. Our live stream evolved as content dictated and we maintained a mobile-minded strategy, creating graphics and content that would translate on a smaller screen. We never strayed from our team's goals of establishing a fun, engaging and entertaining live stream.
