CANNES – With more than 100 million monthly active users and a record-setting Super Bowl simulcast under its belt, streaming platform Tubi is reshaping how audiences and advertisers think about television, says Cynthia Clevenger, senior vice president of business-to-business marketing at the company.
“Tubi has been on a wild tear over the past few years,” Clevenger told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. “The Super Bowl was just one of those milestone moments.”
Super Bowl triumph
Owned by Fox, Tubi leveraged the network’s portfolio to simulcast the Super Bowl earlier this year, a moment that underscored both the technical capabilities of the platform and its ability to attract new types of viewers.
“We executed flawlessly, much in thanks and in part to our incredible tech and product team,” Clevenger said. “It was the most streamed Super Bowl in history.”
Clevenger noted that the Tubi audience tuning in for the Super Bowl was distinct from the traditional football crowd.
“If you think about people who have to work on Super Bowl Sunday, they might be on their phone. If you think about people who aren’t hardcore sports fans, admittedly like myself, you might be more interested in the culture around the sport, the fashion,” she said.
To capitalize on that broader appeal, Tubi introduced new, interactive experiences around the game, including the first-ever Super Bowl red carpet, hosted by Olivia Culpo.
“We interviewed people coming through the tunnel, talked about their fits, and from an advertiser component, we made it shoppable,” Clevenger said.
On-screen QR codes
Partnering with E.l.f. Cosmetics and ShopSense, Tubi gave viewers the ability to scan QR codes on screen and shop the looks in real time. “It was really a 360 experience for our consumers and it was an incremental audience. We brought in really young viewers who tended to skew female,” she added.
Asked about the recent Nielsen data showing that streaming has officially surpassed linear TV in viewership, Clevenger emphasized that the boundaries between formats are blurring.
“I think that we’re definitely breaking down a lot of the silos, and I think that equates to media strategies and investment strategies as well,” she said. “Look, linear is still huge. Look at things like the Super Bowl, right? I think what it is, is that means you just take a look at your mix and really now consider where you can find incrementality across all platforms.”
Hybrid media model
Clevenger described Tubi as “an entertainment company” that provides joy, relaxation, fandom, and even community. That positioning reflects Tubi’s hybrid model, which combines an extensive on-demand library with live streaming capabilities and hundreds of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) channels.
“Well, I’ll say is that over 90% of Tubi’s viewership is on demand, actually,” Clevenger explained. “These are people who are coming to the platform with intent to watch something. We do have a few hundred FAST channels as well, where there’s content that is more linear type format and piped in.”
Despite that on-demand dominance, Tubi’s success with the Super Bowl highlighted its live streaming potential. “We’re super proud of the technical chops that we have and our ability to scale things to streaming, like the most watched live event in the US,” Clevenger said.
Defining FAST amid proliferation
As FAST channels continue to grow rapidly, Clevenger stressed the importance of how those services are defined.
“We use so many acronyms in our industry. FAST, Free Ad Supported Television. That in and of itself has the word TV in it,” she said.
Rather than focusing on formats, Clevenger urged advertisers to prioritize reaching audiences wherever they are and however they watch.
“We have the largest free library in all of streaming, over 275,000 movies and TV shows,” she said. “It’s really just about meeting the consumer where they are. And I think it’s opened up. Fragmentation means opportunity as well.”
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