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About Alia Tabet: Alia is the Director of Marketing for the NFL Network, and her primary focus is to build the NFL Network’s digital presence and drive tune-in for all of the Network’s programs. These include live games (Preseason and Thursday Night Football), events (NFL Draft, Super Bowl, NFL Combine, NFL Training Camp) and Network Original programs (Timeline, A Football Life, and Undrafted).
Unsurprisingly, when the host of an STHQ AMA works for the NFL and the live stream partnership between Twitter and the NFL is announced eight days prior, it’s pretty easy to predict the first topic of discussion. Given her background and experience in digital advertising, Alia’s response was focused on just that.
Alia: We have been advertising Network tune-in on Twitter, so I think there’s a lot more opportunity to test advertising with a live stream, and that’s different. From an advertising standpoint, I’m excited to see how fans respond, and I’m also excited to be able to market to viewers of those live streams. It’s valuable information, and it’s important to know who is consuming our content so we can give them more Network content.
Building off of the Twitter momentum, the conversation swung a bit to capture what this new relationship might mean for the fan viewing experience in the near future.
STHQ: How do you see the NFL viewing experience evolving over the next few years now that Twitter is on the field?
Alia: The NFL viewing experience is already changing. We started streaming with Yahoo last season, and we offer live streams on NFL Mobile, our Network Watch app, NFL Now, NFL Game Pass. The list goes on as to where fans can view our games, events, content news programs, etc.
I think with Twitter in the fold, there will be more access to more fans, and that’ll help to grow the sport of football. It’s also another channel for fans to view TNF, and I think it’ll expand our reach even more.
All in all, we may not truly understand the power of the Twitter/NFL partnership for some time, but Alia made it very clear that this deal has the potential to open up some exciting opportunities for the NFL and the NFL Network.
Alia: We’re constantly trying to learn more about our fans so we can deliver them the content they want. The more personalized, the better.
From here, the conversation expanded a bit towards social media marketing and how the NFL Network in particular develops their strategy. One of the more fascinating moments was Alia’s take on social media’s marketing power and how a designed approach across each social channel is vital since they each serve a unique purpose. In other words, Twitter’s core strength is focused around breaking news, whereas Snapchat is designed to capture a person’s favorite moment through video.
Alia: Our social media approach is across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with it leading into tune-in of our programs. The timing of those flights varies, but it’s strategic.
STHQ: Is there a social platform outside of the big three (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram) that you feel is essential for a sports brand to market their content?
Alia: We’re doing a lot on Snapchat too from the league side. I think they all work in different ways, so it’s more important to have a comprehensive and well thought out social strategy across the major players because the content you present and the way you advertise is different. It’s also about what compliments your organic social content.
The power of digital marketing enables properties like the NFL Network to utilize technology as a means of identifying fans and targeting them with specific call-to-action advertisements. More specifically, the digital marketing atmosphere is rapidly changing with the continuous addition of new, “smarter” technologies.
STHQ: The stadium experience has changed — and continues to change — tremendously with the advent of many new technologies. What is the NFL doing digitally to both market to and engage fans within the stadiums?
Alia: I’m doing a ton of research on measuring tune-in lift from digital advertising. More specifically, how and what really affects tune-in, so I’m doing some work with SambaTV on IP matching and cross-device targeting, and it’s really cool. They own the technology in most Smart TVs, so they can fingerprint what you’re watching, tie it to your IP address, deliver ads to your devices on the same IP, and measure the lift from who has seen your ads and tune-in and who hasn’t. It’s very useful to us because it enables us to bridge the gap between digital and tune-in.
For those unfamiliar with the inner workings of digital marketing, this capability is widely used to deliver targeted advertisements to users on their desktop and mobile devices. One of the next levels in digital marketing is what Alia mentioned about utilizing data from Smart TVs (presumably while someone watches an NFL game or NFL Network content) and matching that information to the same person’s smartphone. This enables the NFL Network to engage that same person with the correct advertisement that entices them to watch additional NFL content, purchase a game-viewing subscription, etc.
As the AMA time window came to a close, there was one final question that drove quite a bit of interest from Alia and the STHQ community in general.
STHQ: What’s one thing that you’d like to see the private market (read: startups) make to make your job easier/more efficient?
Alia: I think there is still a lot that can be done in real-time analytics. We are still putting pieces together to try and tell a story and make important decisions, and I am never satisfied that we were able to capture the whole picture. Currently, seeing how well our competitors are doing and what we can do better is limited. Many sports fans are fans of more than one sport, so we want to do our best for our fans.
Framing a specific business problem, gathering the necessary data, and telling an accurate story is no easy task. And as Alia mentioned, it’s an area that could use some assistance from the startup/entrepreneurial community.
It’s not everyday that the STHQ community is able to pick the brain of someone on the inside of a global sports behemoth like the NFL, so it was very enlightening to have such an interesting and thought-provoking discussion. There’s quite a bit happening within the NFL and NFL Network, so stay plugged in to it all and feel free to connect with Alia on LinkedIn.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it” –Abraham Lincoln
Don’t sit on the sideline while we continue to shape the future of sports.