Fans were left confused after Tubi’s prank commercial aired during this year’s Super Bowl, prompting plenty of viewers to search for their remotes.
In the 15-second viral commercial, Tubi enlisted Fox Sports reporters Greg Olsen and Kevin Burkhardt for what appeared to be a live broadcast from the game. After Burkhardt welcomed viewers back to the Super Bowl, he asked his co-anchor if he thought the game was going “as expected”.
As Olsen was in the midst of responding to the question, the advertisement showed a television screen’s apparent menu section. While the channel was selected on Fox, it quickly switched over to Tubi TV, cutting off the fake Super Bowl broadcast.
The commercial, titled “Tubi Interface Interruption,” proceeded to show some of the movies and TV shows on the streaming service. The ad ended by selecting the 2005 movie Mr and Mrs Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
On Twitter, fans shared their confusion about the Tubi advertisement since they didn’t realise the broadcast was fake and thought someone in their homes had quite literally changed the channel.
“That Tubi commercial had me scrambling for the remote,” one wrote. “That’s flagrant.”
“That Tubi commercial came on & I yelled at every single person in this room,” another wrote.
A third added: “Everybody getting up cause they thought they sat on the remote during that tubi commercial.”
In contrast, many fans lauded the Tubi advertisement for how funny they thought the prank was.
“This super bowl commercial was the biggest and most successful prank in history imo,” one wrote.
“Tubi just finessed millions of families with that commercial, genius marketing,” another said.
A third person tweeted: “Tubi with possibly the best Super Bowl commercial of all time.. had everybody in the room tweaking.”
During an interview with AdWeek, Tubi’s Chief Marketing Officer Nicole Parlapiano explained the intention behind the prank advertisement.
“We can’t be forgettable in this moment,” she said. “It’s our coming out. I want to shock, and I want to surprise, and I want to get attention.”
In addition to “Tubi Interface Interruption”, the network aired another advertisement called “Rabbit Hole”. That one minute commercial featured people being captured by rabbits and getting thrown into a hole, with the opportunity to discover content on Tubi.
Super Bowl 2023 took place at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. You can follow along with our Super Bowl liveblog here.
