In 2023, Tubi took over the Super Bowl with a prank ad that had people questioning whether their Big Game feeds had gone down. Now, the Fox-owned ad-supported streamer is following that up by giving birth to an all-new character for Super Bowl 59.
In the AVOD platform’s new 10-second teaser, a woman gets an ultrasound with her partner next to her, and it seems the child’s real identity is Tubi decided…
“Oh, it’s a boy, and it looks like he’s going to be in a Big Game commercial this year,” a technician says. “Look at those little toesies.”
Meanwhile, the game’s date, “2.9.25,” is projected on the ultrasound screen.
Tubi’s 2023 Super Bowl ads, which featured the prank spot and an ad where giant rabbits dragged TV fans into a rabbit hole, were about creating awareness for the brand, Nicole Parlapiano, Tubi CMO, told ADWEEK.
“Our strategy on those ads was really to get our name out there,” Parlapiano said. “We didn’t have very high consumer advertiser awareness at that point, and so we were just trying to be stunty and get people talking about Tubi. We hadn’t nailed to the core what the brand is and what it means to people.”
Now, two years later, the company wanted to do something different, adding more emotional resonance in a spot created in partnership with Mischief @ No Fixed Address, the agency behind the company’s other Big Game ads.
“What we really wanted to do is bring more emotion into the brand and give meaning to what we mean when we say, ‘See you in there,’ and we’re not really looking to shock viewers in the same way, but build more credibility,” Parlapiano said. “We’ve evolved a lot in the last two years, so we are much bigger now.”
Tubi announced earlier this month that it had 97 million monthly active viewers and 10 billion streaming hours in 2024. It was also recently announced that Fox Sports will roll out a Tubi takeover of the Big Game, which includes a Fox telecast of the Super Bowl on the free ad-supported platform in 4K.
Parlapiano said working with Mischief @ No Fixed Address on Super Bowl spots the last two years has been a lesson in growth for both parties.
“We had this viral, lightning in a bottle moment, and when we sat with Mischief, we were trying to think about this year and how to honor your past, but not let it dictate your future,” Parlapiano said. “We’ve always been known to have wacky and very fun, cool ads—playing with a bit of humor and shock. We’re not losing that, but you have to balance that when you’re trying to strike a more emotional cord.”
Just like the Tubi platform, which offers programming of various genres, Parlapiano said the full spot will cater to a variety of viewers—and is ultimately a love letter to their communities and genre fans. However, the CMO also noted the ad was a tribute to what Tubi has been through over the past decade since launching in 2014.
“The spot is almost an homage to the company and the path we’ve been on because, for the first seven or eight years of the business, everyone told us our business model wasn’t going to work,” Parlapiano said. “We weren’t the cool kids. Everyone was saying ad-supported was never going to be something that streaming would ever do. Now, we’re in a place where it is cool.”
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