Watch Tubi’s Super Bowl brand ad showcasing fandom as fleshy hats

Tubi debuted its new brand campaign during Super Bowl LIX’s second quarter, following up its show-stopping 2023 Big Game ad that seemed to literally stop the show by pretending to open Tubi during Fox’s broadcast. This year, the streaming service goes for the feels with a distinct look in the tale of a TV watcher who endured loneliness and mockery for his unfashionable taste. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Click here The Super Bowl “feels like a night of shouting and who shouts the loudest with a lot of celebrities,” said Nicole Parlapiano, chief marketing officer at Tubi. “We always like to be not the loudest on Super Bowl night, but the most interesting …We’re all under pressure as marketers to be very direct, very performance-driven, and you don’t see many brand campaigns anymore that are truly just trying to drive a feeling and a connection.” The “If It’s In You, It’s In Here” campaign was inspired by Tubi research that found 73% of Gen Zers said they don’t want to be beholden to trends, and 53% have lied about watching a buzzy title. Rather, 83% of surveyed Gen Z respondents said they take pride in the guilty pleasure viewing. Appealing to Gen Z has been a top priority for the Fox-owned streamer as over half of its 97 million monthly users are Gen Z or millennials. Tubi’s 60-second spot opens on a couple’s sonogram appointment, in which they find out not only the baby’s gender, but that he’s also a fan of westerns. The boy can’t hide his passion for the genre because the skin on top of his head is stretched over the form of a cowboy hat. Other students in his class, with noggins in the form of wizard hats, mock him for not liking hot fantasy content. And later, the same boys tease the buckaroo for not liking pirate flicks as they try to cover their pointy craniums with eyepatches and red scarves. In the end, the cowpoke finds himself in the know as western programming—and apparel—make a comeback. Rather than retaliate when his grade school bullies try to wear ranchwear over their fantasy-shaped flesh, he turns on a dragon-fighting epic on Tubi for them. The spot ends with Tubi’s tagline “see you in there.” The campaign was made with Tubi’s creative agency of record Mischief @ No Fixed Address. Later in the game, a 15-second cut of the spot, with original scenes and a bouncy western song, will air. Parlapiano said the intention of the additional spot with an original track is to show marketing that is able to be used across media channels more naturally, with a song that is easily reusable on social. An additional 15-second cut will run only on Tubi. “It’s hard [to repurpose marketing] when you’re making something for TV, and often we just chop shop it and then run it more broadly other places,” said Parlapiano. “What I really like about our fifteens is they’re not a cut-down [of the hero]—you’re seeing scenes that you didn’t see in the 60, there’s bespoke music. I’m always pushing for that because usually any type of TV commercial-type content just flops in other channels after that.” The original song is also a tribute to the tunes ranchers traditionally sang to cattle to keep them calm, and “viewers’ nerves might be a little frazzled … we’re hoping this calms people down and gives them a bit of joy,” added Parlapiano. Through the campaign, Tubi seeks to raise brand awareness via the Super Bowl’s mass audience reach, as well as raise consideration amongst the streaming market. Parlapiano said she will also be looking at social sentiment and conversation around the campaign immediately following the game. But over time, Tubi will be tracking incremental traffic gains driven to the platform as well as search for Tubi attributable to the Super Bowl campaign. In addition to lift with consumers, Parlapiano is looking to grow brand perception with advertisers and build their understanding of what Tubi offers to drive higher investment for ad buys. The marketer wants to have a better sense of whether advertisers still see Tuib as part of a lower class of streamer or if it’s now being considered in the same league as streamers often described as “premium,” such as Hulu. Read more: Inside Tubi’s Super Bowl streaming ad deals “For so many years, we were not cool and told our business model wasn’t going to work and ad-supported [streaming] was never going to be a thing and viewers were never going to want it,” said Parlapiano, describing parallels between the hero’s journey in Tubi’s Super Bowl spot to the brand’s own growth. “Now here we are, and everyone’s here with us, and we’re just going to be gracious and tip our hat.” During Tubi’s stream of the Super Bowl and pre-game coverage, the streamer will air additional spots in partnership with other Super Bowl brands, although Parlapiano declined to identify in advance. One partnership with e.l.f. aired during Tubi’s pregame. After the cosmetics brand’s ad, in which a German scientist takes testing product review claims too seriously, a spot immediately followed declaring, “If that e.l.f. ad was a Tubi movie.” The same actor is shown wielding medical tools menacingly while the title “Trial & Terror” appears. The narrator claims that the film will soon come to Tubi “if enough people like this trailer we just made.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tubi (@tubi) Parlapiano attributes the willingness of other brands to partner with them as a testament to a shift in understanding of Tubi within the ad industry. “I want other brands to see other brands working with us, and I do want to create that FOMO on the trade side,” said Parlapiano, adding that the partnerships will be “hacky, but a different approach” from Tubi’s 2023 TV takeover spot. In part, the difference is that Tubi is streaming the Super Bowl this year, and “I’m not trying to hack my own Super Bowl,” said Parlapiano. The brand partnership spots will not cause “mass hysteria like we caused last time, but the intent is to break the rhythm of the night,” said Parlapiano. Outside of the Super Bowl broadcast, Tubi will also have out-of-home and influencer marketing supporting the brand campaign. OOH ads in New York, Atlanta and Dallas depict additional scenes of viewers’ inner desires versus their outer lives. One shows a corporate suit lounging on the couch, while an alternate version next to him flexes six-pack abs with the text, “If you’re a lawyer with an anti-hero side, stream action on Tubi.” Another shows a woman with multicolor hair watching TV next to a doppelganger wearing a labcoat: “If you’re a hairdresser with a detective side, stream true crime on Tubi.” An interactive influencer campaign tasks consumers with discovering their “genre-ology.” Packaged like a genealogy kit, and promoted with infomercial spoof spots, the marketing helps identify one’s top three genres. A microsite, called MyTestTubi, features an in-depth quiz, which Parlapiano described as part astrology, part personality test and “very scientific.” And an interactive social media filter will reveal users’ genres as well, with fleshy aesthetics to match.

Watch Tubi’s Super Bowl brand ad showcasing fandom as fleshy hats

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