Situation:

1.Tubi’s unaided awareness was through the floor

While 18% of Americans had watched something on Tubi last month, Tubi’s brand awareness was only 9% (compared to Netflix’s 92%)

2. Our competitors were also Super Bowl bound

Netflix, Paramount+ and Peacock had bought almost eight-minutes of Super Bowl ad space.

3. No new content to launch

Category conventions dictate that your new content should be front and center of communication. Tubi had no new content, so it would have to rely on branded messaging.

Brief:

How can Tubi make everyone ask, “What the Hell is Tubi?!” while also familiarizing them with the platform.

Objectives:

1. Increase Tubi brand awareness by 2%

- From 9% to 11%

2. Increase engagement

- Be one of the top 5 most talked about brands at the Super Bowl

3. Increase both viewership and viewing-time by 10% in the month following

It’s the final minutes of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. The score is tied 35 to 35. Tensions are high. Fans are on the edge of their seats.

And then, an ad break. Skechers plays a commercial.

Then, the “Super Bowl on FOX” graphics appear, the iconic audio sting, and we’re back in the studio with the broadcasting crew.

Suddenly, a Smart TV menu appears on the screen. The cursor scrolls through common apps before selecting Tubi.

The app opens and scrolls through a list of titles until it lands on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”. The title is clicked. The Tubi logo appears.

And then the next ad plays.

In the span of 15 seconds, Tubi made an entire nation reach for their remotes. And laugh at the fact they’d just been pranked into watching a product demo.

People were watching Tubi but didn’t know we existed.

Most brands have greater awareness than conversion.

Peacock had 85% awareness and 16% usage.

Tubi, on the other hand, had unaided brand awareness of only 9%, and yet 15% of Americans had visited Tubi in the last month.

Which led us to our insight: Even though people didn’t know Tubi, many unwittingly downloaded it onto their SMART TV.

Many Americans searching for their content fixes had stumbled across Tubi, viewed content, and never returned again.

Which is easy when Tubi’s both free and doesn’t require registration.

But that meant Tubi was laying dormant on their Smart TV screens, completely forgotten.

The Super Bowl would be the perfect time to remind them.

78.4% of American households watch the game on Smart TVs. Which makes sense, given the Super Bowl is a communal event with many groups gathering to watch the big game.

BACKGROUND + CONTEXT

What started as a category of one (Netflix) had quickly grown to dozens of platforms fighting to steal a share of America’s $169 billion streaming market.

Tubi, a free, ad-supported streaming service without any marquee content, wasn’t winning the battle for attention. So even though it had been in the market for a decade, almost nobody knew about it.

Tubi was hoping the Super Bowl would be a chance to catapult the brand into the minds of Americans.

CREATIVE CHALLENGE

We were hamstrung as a business by three key challenges:

1. Our competitors were outspending us at Super Bowl

Over and above streaming services buying eight-minutes of Super Bowl ad space, we also knew (if previous years were anything to go by) they’d be packing some serious celebrity talent. Tubi had no celebrity partners to draw on.

2. No new content to launch

Category conventions dictate that new content is the message.

Unlike our competitors, Tubi had no new content, so it would have to rely solely on branded messaging.

3. Half of those who had watched Tubi but didn’t know we exist

Most conversion funnels suggest that a brand’s awareness is significantly higher than its usage.

Netflix had 95% brand awareness and 52% usage.

Tubi, on the other hand, had unaided brand awareness of only 9%, and yet 18% of Americans had watched content on our platform in the last month.

Which led us to our insight: Even if people didn’t know Tubi, many had unwittingly downloaded it onto their SMART TV and forgotten about us.

In fairness, it would be easy to forget a platform like Tubi that’s free and doesn’t require registration. But that meant Tubi was laying dormant on their screens, completely forgotten.

The Super Bowl would be the perfect time to remind them of the app.

SOLUTION/EXECUTION

It’s the final minutes of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. The score is tied 35 to 35. Tensions are high.

Fans are on the edge of their seats. And then, an ad break.

Skechers plays a commercial.

There’s an ad about Jesus and how “He Gets Us.”

Then, the “Super Bowl on FOX” graphics appear, the iconic audio sting sounds and we’re back in the studio with the broadcasting crew.

Suddenly, the menu of a Smart TV appears on the lower third of the screen.

The cursor scrolls through common apps before selecting Tubi.

The app opens and scrolls through a list of titles until it lands on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”.

The title is clicked. The Tubi logo appears. And then the next ad plays.

That was Tubi’s Interface Interruption.

In the span of 15 seconds, Tubi made an entire nation reach for their remotes.

Had they sat on it? Had their toddler changed the channel? Did the bartender’s finger slip? Was their TV hacked at the most pivotal moment of the big game?!

It wasn’t just disruptive, it was the night’s most engaging product demo.

In 15 seconds, Tubi went from being a virtually unknown streaming service to the most talked about brand at the Super Bowl.

6.8 billion impressions

2,000+ articles

4.2MM video views

Objective 1.Exceeded

Tubi’s brand awareness increased from 9% to 16.1% virtually overnight.

More than tripling the brand lift increase seen from our competitors.

Objective 2: Exceeded

After the spot aired, Tubi was clocking in over 6,000 brand mentions a minute.

It became the number one most discussed brand, and the number four most discussed overall topic [on Twitter] in the fourth quarter only behind Rihanna (the Halftime Show performer) and the two teams playing.

Objective 3: Exceeded

Interface Interrupted saw a near instantaneous rise in viewership.

Within 24 hours, Tubi had a 40% increase in new visitors⁴ and 38% growth in viewing time.

And a month later Tubi become the #1 free TV and movie AVOD service on the market.