Tubi targets upfronts attendees with satirical short films

Dive Brief:

Tubi, Fox Corporation’s ad-support video-on-demand (AVOD) service, launched "The Call to Action: A Film Series for Marketers," per details shared with Marketing Dive. Aimed at ad industry professionals, the campaign is timed as upfront events, including the IAB's NewFronts, kick off this month.
The short films use familiar genres like mystery thrillers and romantic comedies to satirize the personal and professional lives of those in the ad industry. Created with agency of record Mischief @ No Fixed Address, the films live on Tubi and YouTube and will be promoted across social channels and out-of-home placements in key ad markets.
The B2B campaign targets marketers at a time when Fox has reorganized its digital efforts around Tubi, a platform that recently became the most-watched free ad-support television service in the U.S.

Dive Insight:

Tubi is attempting to add some light-hearted fun to marketers' lives during the upfronts season — a typically fraught and frantic period for media buyers, account teams and creatives in the industry. Amazon kicks off the season with a presentation tonight before the IAB NewFronts and traditional network upfronts continue throughout the month.

"The Upfront season is one of the most intense times of the year for buyers, so we wanted to offer them a bit of fun and levity with these hyper relevant short films," said Cynthia Clevenger, vice president of B2B marketing at Tubi, in a statement. "We hear from our audience all the time that we make them feel seen, which is the feeling we wanted to bring to the ad community through this campaign."

The short films satirize ad industry work and utilize familiar genres, albeit with some twists. "The Gen Z Next Door" is a "Rear Window"-styled mystery for the social media age about a millennial tasked with researching the "Gen Z audience persona;" "Under the Impression" turns a creative trafficking mistake into a thrilling interrogation; and "Request for Proposal" is a rom-com about a media buyer who crafts a campaign to convince her boyfriend to propose.

The ads were created with agency of record Mischief @ No Fixed Address, which aimed to entertain instead of touting ad tech features or metrics as in most B2B marketing, Hunter Fine, creative director at Mischief, said in a statement. Mischief was also behind Tubi's disruptive Super Bowl campaign — an effort that suggested the AVOD service would be getting a bigger push in 2023 and beyond.

Tubi in March accounted for 1% of total TV consumption, making it the most-watched free ad-supported television (FAST) service in the U.S., per Nielsen data cited by the platform. AVOD platforms and FAST services could stand to gain ground as consumers feel the crunch of subscription service costs, opening new channels for advertisers. A quarter of Tubi streamers are unreachable on other major ad-supported streaming services, and the audience is core audience is young and diverse, according to press materials.

The campaign comes amid a corporate restructuring, as Fox last month formed the Tubi Media Group, a new division that will house its standalone digital businesses including Tubi, Credible and Blockchain Creative Labs. Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi will exit the company at the end of June, with a successor to be named.

Previously, Tubi introduced new planning tools and partnerships with VideoAmp, LiveRamp and Comscore that seek to help brands utilize emerging identity solutions and currency options.