SuperBowl commercials are big and getting bigger every year. I always look forward to the work of creative minds at various Agencies trying to outdo eachother, even to the point of anticipating commercials during the game.
It may be the one time of year everyone leaves the fast forward button alone.
And, it works. At least according to Scott Keogh, chief marketing officer, Audi of America.
“In short, the Super Bowl has worked. The brand has never been stronger, market share is increasing and we are setting the stage to increase our momentum in 2010″
If the campaign has a significant web component, the issue that many Agencies face is the last link in a long chain: “where do we put this web site/app?”
All the creative work, development, and back forth with the client is over, so where can you put this baby so that it flies?
Traditional hosting (even robust dedicated hosting) is often just not up to the task of handling the millions of pageviews and pairs of eyeballs that are inevitable with a SuperBowl spot.
Cloud Hosting, which is defined by its ability to scale on demand as the resources are needed, is a perfect fit. It can handle all the traffic you could possibly throw at it, and when the traffic goes away your resources scale back down.
Rackspace Cloud offers three distinct offerings to handle a massive SuperBowl traffic spike:
CloudSites – a “platform as a service” that we manage for you. You literally load the site and watch it scale, and only pay for the resources you use. If your traffic spike lasts one day, you only pay for that day’s intense resource usage.
CloudServers – Instantly provision Linux servers on the fly, and add as many as you need. You have full root access to do whatever you need. As an example, Encoding.com runs about 80 CloudServers on any given day, but may scale up to 1000 during peak loads. That’s flexibility.
CloudFiles - Load up your files and get World Class Content Delivery through Limelight Networks. This is perfect for large video assets, as it frees up your primary hosting environment.
Hosting is changing, and Cloud is leading the charge.
If you want to chat about Cloud Hosting for your SuperBowl campaign, I can be reached at 210-312-5526 or devin.elder@rackspace.com



Rackspace Partner Program
Partnering with a hosting provider has a lot of advantages. Aside from discounts and commissions, a partnership creates a relationship between you and your hosting vendor.
With B2B, we don’t deal with companies, we deal with people. A partnership allows you to deal with the same people again and again, and will cut down on the time you spend getting answers and solutions from your vendor.
I want to outline two services that Rackspace has specific Partner Programs for: Cloud Hosting and Managed Hosting.
Managed Hosting Partner Program Overview:
What is Managed Hosting? Instead of buying servers, firewalls, storage devices, etc, you let a third party do all that and simply pay a monthly bill. At Rackspace, Managed Hosting also includes 24*7*365 support from a dedicated team of experts. Rackspace will manage everything up to the application layer so you and your clients can focus on core business competencies.
This program is tiered, with higher commissions or discounts associated with more referrals:
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As a Rackspace Partner, you will get the following benefits/resources:
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► To sign up for the Managed Hosting Partner Program, go here: http://www.rackspace.com/forms/solutionpartnerapplication.php
As always, please feel free to contact me to discuss a Rackspace Partnership: 210-312-5526 or devin.elder@rackspace.com