Tubi and Mischief made three satirical films about media buyers for upfront season

The upfronts and NewFronts are largely a numbers game, leaning heavily on data and technology, audience and inventory. Things can feel ... impersonal. But now Tubi, the Fox-owner streamer, is bringing some warmth to the proceedings by courting media buyers in a more unconventional way. With agency Mischief, it’s made three amusing, satirical short films about the advertising business itself—spanning genres from crime thrillers to romance—as a way to engage buyers beyond the coldness of a sales pitch. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here The strategic idea, though unusual, is simple. Tubi is known for its vast library of content that’s more niche than most competitors, so it’s communicating that to buyers by creating the ultimate niche content—for them. Plus, the work more generally postions Tubi, yet again, as a platform that just does things differently. Read more: How Tubi tricked Super Bowl viewers with an ad One film, called “Request for Proposal,” stars a young media buyer who’s frustrated that her boyfriend won’t propose. So, she teams up with a designer friend to create a targeted ad campaign aimed at him alone—to hopefully get him to stop dragging his feet. Cynthia Clevenger, VP of business-to-business marketing at Tubi, told Ad Age that the brief to Mischief was to connect emotionally with the advertising community—at a time when most networks are trying to do so more logically. “I don't want to give them a stat or a number or another chart. People have seen this stuff,” Clevenger said. “No matter what passion point or deep thing you want to go in on, you feel seen when you come to Tubi. That’s how our consumers feel when they come to the app. Creating that emotional connection with buyers is what this is about. We want them to feel seen as well.” Upfronts and NewFronts blog Tracking the latest TV and digital ad pitches Read more here Rolling out what’s essentially a brand play—the short films will live on Tubi’s platform and on YouTube—can pave the way for a sales conversation, Clevenger added. “The impact our brand is making on the mass market has a halo effect on our advertising partners,” she said. “It’s exciting and it allows us to have meaningful conversations with them. They’re inundated with sales presentations right now. I think this is unique, different and we'll stand out.” A second film, called “Under the Impression,” stars another young media buyer who’s being interrogated, Hollywood style, after the wrong creative gets trafficked for a campaign. Watch for the grim little twist at the end. Clevenger said “Under the Impression” is her favorite of the films. “Being a media buyer, working with traffickers, I know that feeling,” she said. “A lot of times these are younger people executing things with a substantial amount of revenue on the line. I think everybody has felt that feeling of sending the email to the wrong person, maybe early on in your career.” The third film is called “The Gen Z Next Door” and shows just that—though this one also gets a bit darker than you might expect. “Request for Proposal” was directed by Ghost + Cow (the directing duo of John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke). “The Gen Z Next Door” was directed by Chelsea Lupkin. And “Under the Impression” was directed by Ghost + Cow and Lupkin together. This blurring of the line between consumer and B2B is something Tubi did with its Super Bowl campaign as well. The rabbit-hole spot didn’t just help consumers better understand Tubi, it helped all the media buyers watching understand it, too. “That spot really articulated a lot of what we've been saying in our sales conversations and a lot of what we've been talking to advertisers about,” Clevenger said. “We're all watching the Super Bowl. Explaining Tubi visually in such a creative way was not only intriguing to consumers, but to advertisers as well. It made it click.” More news: Programmatic ads will be part of TV upfront deals “While B2B marketing can rely heavily on touting the latest ad tech features or metrics, we wanted to speak to advertisers like consumers by creating branded content to entertain,” said Hunter Fine, creative director at Mischief. “It’s true to Tubi’s unconventional style, and comes hot on the heels of the mischief they made at the Super Bowl.” See all of Ad Age's 2023 Creativity Award winners here Doing something fun in a typically staid format also just enhances Tubi’s cool factor, something that’s been growing for a while—and which is also good for business, as people are just drawn to working with buzzy companies. “We are part of the cultural conversation of today, and it is cool,” said Clevenger. “But that feeling, that cool factor, is something I think is genuine and organic. I wasn’t trying to come up with something buzzy here. This was a genuine extension of who we are as an organization.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs

Tubi and Mischief made three satirical films about media buyers for upfront season

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