Exclusive: Tubi’s Satirical B-to-B Campaign Brings Comedy to Cannes

Tubi and Mischief are at it again.

Ahead of Cannes Lions, the AVOD and agency of record Mischief @ No Fixed Address teamed up for a b-to-b marketing campaign designed specifically for the creative ad community.

The campaign will feature nine different satirical film posters with titles that will resonate with festival attendees, including names such as The Idea Someone Else Did, Creative Déjà Vu, Posing With a Lion and Unattended Panel.

The partnership, which is behind Tubi’s viral Super Bowl campaign and its most recent b-to-b upfronts campaign, created content specifically for Cannes attendees, highlighting the experiences everyone shares at the events.

“We really have had the chance to create more of an emotional connection with our advertisers, and they are our business,” Cynthia Clevenger, vp of b-to-b marketing at Tubi, told Adweek. “Speaking to them in a way that not only communicates the value of investing in Tubi from an advertising perspective, but also getting who we are as a brand, has been extremely important.”

The AVOD is not planning a “full takeover” at Cannes, but it will have an activation on the Parvis where sketch artists will place attendees in their own satirical film posters.

“We saw a ton of engagement on the [b-to-b] videos, and what’s fun about marketing to marketers is we know who they are, we can have a little bit of fun with it,” said Clevenger. “We thought, ‘What can we do in a clever and unique way that gets people to notice us, and is really different from a mainstream way that everybody shows up there?’”

According to Clevenger, the company “really challenged” partner Mischief to come up with a creative and unique approach, going through several iterations before landing on the film posters.

“It’s really taking what we did in our ‘Call to Action’ campaign timed around upfronts and applying it to this localized conference where we know there’s a high level of advertising folks in a centralized location,” said Clevenger.

Tubi will also have out-of-home placements, and on the Parvis, attendees can also get physical copies of the nine posters.

“With a content library more than 50,000 titles strong, there’s something for everyone on Tubi—even ad people. And, given that Tubi relies on advertisers as part of its model, it felt only natural that we turn up at advertisers’ biggest festival of the year.” João Viégas, associate creative director at Mischief, said in a statement. “Inspiration for the campaign was extremely easy to find, given, well, we are the target audience. It was also somewhat therapeutic. And a wakeup call that I should stop bragging about awards for work I barely worked on.”

Tubi will also be hosting clients in its executive suite alongside the Fox team, and CMO Nicole Parlapiano will have a number of speaking engagements, including at Adweek’s “Stacking the Marketer’s Toolbox for Success” during Adweek Abroad in Cannes on Monday.