Tubi campaign adds a phone line that picks films by feeling

Tubi has built a campaign around moods instead of genres, and given it a phone number. The free streaming service started Find Any Feeling For Free on 10 September. It runs worldwide and includes nine short films plus a hotline on 1-833-605-TUBI. Adweek calls it the largest Tubi campaign so far by the number of creative assets.

Nine films, each about one absurd chase

Every film shows a person going to a ridiculous length to feel something. Each one then points at the same alternative: the feeling is already on Tubi, and it costs nothing. Mischief at No Fixed Address made the work.

The hotline sorts films by mood, not genre

Callers to 1-833-605-TUBI pick a feeling. The options include adventurous, vengeful, sentimental and romantic. The line then reads back film and show recommendations that match. It is a piece of media as much as a gimmick, because a phone number can carry a poster, a radio spot and a social post without a link.

Tubi reports 110 million monthly users, up 14%

The company puts its audience at 110 million monthly active users, 14% more than a year earlier. Nicole Parlapiano, chief marketing officer at Tubi, ties the creative idea to that growth: “What we choose to watch is deeply personal”, she said, and is usually driven by what someone wants to feel next.

Free viewing is the other half of the pitch. It lands at a moment when paid services keep asking for more, as they did when Netflix raised UK and German prices and hit the ad tier hardest.

Sorting by feeling is a fix for too much choice

A catalogue this large is hard to browse, and genre labels stopped helping years ago. Asking what someone wants to feel is a shortcut around that problem, and it also gives the brand a line that works in any market without translation of a genre name.

There is a practical lesson for anyone selling a large catalogue. Try naming the outcome a customer wants rather than the category the product sits in. And note the choice of a phone line over an app: it works on a poster, on radio and in a car, and it needs no download. Other media owners are widening where the catalogue itself shows up, as Sony did when it added free ad-supported channels to the PlayStation 5.