How Tubi tricked Super Bowl viewers with its devious interruption ad

Do not attempt to adjust your television set. That’s just a Tubi promo messing with you.

While scores of advertisers mostly used celebrities to grab attention on Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Fox-owned streaming service Tubi did so with a clever end-around that had viewers initially wondering what had happened to their TVs during the fourth quarter of the game, which aired on Fox.

The promo, devised by the agency Mischief, opened on Fox Sports announcers Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen, who were calling the game. As they were talking, the screen suddenly shifted to what looked like a smart TV interface, with somebody clicking around and launching the Tubi app—then selecting the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” to watch.

A few seconds after that, the Tubi logo flashed, making clear it had been a promo all along. 

A ‘playful hack’

For Tubi, it was mission accomplished. The brand certainly got noticed on Sunday, not just for the prank ad but also for its 60-second rabbit-hole spot. That ad ended up winning the Super Clio—a trophy given to the night’s best spot, as judged by a panel of industry creatives.

“Since day one, my primary objective was to make sure our Super Bowl debut was not lost in the crowded Super Bowl ad landscape or seen as forgettable,” Tubi chief marketing officer Nicole Parlapiano told Ad Age after the final whistle Sunday night. “Having our brand consistently in the top eight trending on Twitter for Super Bowl LVII, and in the top five during the game—and the only brand—right under ‘Eagles,’ ‘Chiefs’ and ‘Rihanna’ is just such incredible validation of the work and vision that our teams at Tubi and Mischief partnered on.”

Parlapiano described the execution as a “playful hack” and said the brand wasn’t overly worried about seriously confusing viewers.

“We wanted to do something simple that stopped people in their tracks while also serving as a product demo,” added Greg Hahn, co-founder and chief creative officer at Mischief. “Having the Fox Super Bowl LVII announcers be a part of it to make it feel real was something too good to pass up.”

Rather than focus on the platform’s content, though, Tubi wanted its Super Bowl campaign to be a brand play positioning the service as fun and somewhat mischievous—what Hahn described as “a bit of a troublemaker” in the streaming world.

“It’s playful and doesn’t take itself too seriously,” he said. “The rabbit hole is about having content that drags you in and you struggle to pull away from. The interruption ad is that idea in action.”

Parlapiano said the two spots together were a breakthrough way of showcasing Tubi’s personality.

“Early on we decided we didn’t want to anchor our Super Bowl brand marketing campaign with a recognizable face or take a content-focused approach,” she said. “We wanted to help people better understand the emotional connection our users associate with Tubi. We are fun and playful, a little daring, and people can really get lost in the content they love on our platform.”