Social Rocket
Tubi is launching "Find Any Feeling For Free", its first global brand campaign. The free, ad-supported streaming service is not focusing on individual genres or titles, but on the question of which feeling viewers are looking for right now. The campaign includes nine films, social and out-of-home activations, and locally adapted visuals in the service's international markets.
The move is also commercially relevant: Tubi recently reported 110 million monthly active users, 14 percent more than a year earlier. In August, the company also reported a revenue increase of 35 percent and engagement growth of 17 percent compared with the previous year.
Tubi positions streaming as mood rather than catalogue
The nine campaign films show people taking absurd detours to experience a particular feeling. The resolution in each case is, in essence: you could instead just switch on Tubi. The campaign was developed with Mischief @ No Fixed Address.
That is more than a creative framework. Large streaming catalogues have a discovery problem: the more content is available, the harder choosing becomes. Tubi therefore translates this abundance into a simpler promise – not "What do you want to watch?", but "How do you want to feel?".
In the US, Tubi is supplementing the campaign with the TubiFone. Callers dial a phone hotline, choose a mood such as "adventurous", "vengeful", "sentimental" or "romantic", and receive matching film and series recommendations. This turns a classic brand campaign into an unusual discovery mechanism that is easy to extend across social posts, OOH visuals and audio formats.
110 million users make AVOD a genuine media category
The campaign comes at a time when free, ad-supported streaming is clearly gaining reach. Tubi now describes itself as a service with more than 110 million monthly active users. For advertisers, this means AVOD is no longer leftover inventory between classic TV and subscription offers.
In the German market, too, attention is increasingly shifting towards connected TV. Srocket has already shown why YouTube on the television is becoming more important for brands and how streaming and classic pay-TV bundles are growing together again. In parallel, Meta is bringing creator content to larger screens with Instagram for TV.
Tubi itself is currently not available in Germany, however. According to its own information, the service is active in the USA, Canada, Mexico, parts of Latin America, the United Kingdom and Australia. For German marketers, the campaign is therefore mainly interesting as a signal of how international, ad-funded streaming brands are developing.
What marketers can take from the campaign
The most interesting part is the combination of branding, content discovery and distribution. Tubi is not building a separate idea for each channel; instead, the same emotional concept runs through TV spots, social, OOH and a physical or telephone touchpoint.
For brands with large assortments or hard-to-navigate product worlds, there is a transferable lesson here: users do not always have to sort by categories, features or products first. An entry point based on desired outcomes, situations or emotions can be easier to understand – while also providing creative material for several channels.
That Tubi is globalising what is so far its largest campaign by number of assets right now also shows how strongly AVOD providers want to charge their brands beyond pure price arguments. "Free" remains the central benefit. The brand is trying, however, to turn it additionally into an emotional habit.