Tubi’s Super Bowl Campaign Wins 2024 Grand Effie; Mischief and McCann Take Top Agency Honors

The advertising industry’s top award recognizing marketing effectiveness revealed its winners tonight.

The Effie Awards U.S. handed out its Grand Effie to Tubi, while recognizing an array of companies including Molson Coors, McDonald’s, McCann Worldgroup and Mischief @ No Fixed Address for their effective work over the past year.

Tubi scored the Grand Effie for its 2023 Super Bowl work featuring a combination of a long-form “Rabbit Holes” spot and 15-second “Interface Interruption” ad, which tricked Super Bowl viewers into thinking they had accidentally changed the channel to the Tubi app.

Mischief led the charge on the agency side, snagging top honors for Most Effective Agency Office and Most Effective Independent Agency. It also created the Tubi work that won the Grand Effie.

The Effie Awards shared with ADWEEK some judging feedback as to why Tubi won the Grand Effie: “They zigged when others zagged. But they created a category for themselves that they continue to build on. Super tight and smart. A real example of how brands can be built in the future.”

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Winning big at the Effies is difficult unless an entry’s story and case study are strong across the board, Juliet Haygarth, chief brand and marketing officer for Effie Worldwide, told ADWEEK.

The most effective work pulls a red thread through the entire case study, from the stroke of creative genius to articulating the business challenge to understanding your audience insights, she added.

“People think effectiveness is what happens at the end when you measure something. And actually, effectiveness is a day-to-day orientation,” she said. “What our winners show is how you do that in the real world day in and day out.”

Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano credits the brand’s ability to listen to fan communities and its viewers for its breakthrough work.

“When thinking about how to introduce Tubi on the Super Bowl stage, we wanted to articulate our differentiators through Rabbit Holes and pair that with a disruptive product moment to get people’s attention, all within a wrapper that could live on into other campaigns with our varied audiences,” Parlapiano told ADWEEK.

With the wins, Mischief chief strategy officer Jeff McCrory said it should show the industry that there’s more to Mischief than just great creative for its clients, which range Tubi to Tinder, Kraft Heinz to Anytime Fitness, Molson Coors to FanDuel Casino, and Chili’s to eos.

“What people are discovering is that there’s a real strategic rigor and backbone to all that great creative,” McCrory said. “It’s all, always very purposeful. Strategy doesn’t inhibit creativity, it unlocks it, so the ideas are designed to drive real business results, not just ‘be cool.’”

The winners

There were eight Grand Effie Contenders aside from Tubi’s winning work, meaning they were the top scoring Gold Effie Award winners:

1. “Move Over Turkey, Campbell’s Celebrates and Owns Sides Season.” Brand: Campbell Soup Company/Campbell’s Condensed Soup. Agencies: Leo Burnett Chicago and MSL Group
2. “The Blue Square: Standing Up to Jewish Hate.” Brand: Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS), Agencies: VML (entered as Wunderman Thompson) and Mindshare
3. “The Cactus Plant Flea Market Box.” Brand: McDonald’s. Agencies: Wieden+Kennedy New York with Starcom, Narrative Media Group, The Marketing Store and Boxer
4. “ADLaM: An Alphabet to Preserve a Culture.” Brand: Microsoft. Agencies: McCann New York with NAFFA, Jamra Patel, Andrew Footit Design and Craft.
5. “Oreo Codes.” Brand: Mondelēz International/Oreo. Agency: VML (entered as VMLY&R Commerce)
6. “Superstore.” Brand: Progressive Insurance. Agency: Arnold Worldwide
7. “Brand.” Brand: Tinder. Agency: Mischief @ No Fixed Address
8. “A Peek Into the Real Navy.” Brand U.S. Navy. Agency: VML (entered as VMLY&R)

As part of the competition, the Effies revealed its top marketers and agencies based on a point system that will factor into the 2024 Global Effie Index, which will be announced in early 2025.

2024 U.S. rankings:

Most Effective Marketers: 1. Molson Coors  2. McDonald’s 3. Fox Corporation and Kraft Heinz Company (tie)
Most Effective Brands: 1. McDonald’s  2. Tubi  3. Tinder
Most Effective Holding Companies: 1. IPG  2. WPP 3. Publicis Groupe
Most Effective Agency Networks: 1. McCann Worldgroup 2. VMLY&R (now VML) 3. Ogilvy
Most Effective Agency Offices: 1. Mischief @ No Fixed Address 2. Ogilvy New York 3. McCann New York
Most Effective Independent Agencies: 1. Mischief @ No Fixed Address 2. Wieden+Kennedy 3. Gut

ADWEEK will have comprehensive looks at a number of the most compelling case studies that took home top honors at the Effies in the coming weeks.