In an industry where many CMOs compete with massive media budgets and polished campaigns promoting tentpole content, Tubi’s Nicole Parlapiano is doing things differently—both by necessity and choice but always because, as Parlapiano sees it, marketing today requires thinking dangerously.

CMO of the FOX-owned, ad-supported streamer since 2022, in service of thinking and doing dangerously, Parlapiano has built a marketing engine that behaves more like a startup than a studio.

“I’ve done work that could fail,” Parlapiano says. “But it’s better to throw your hat in the ring than to wait for perfection.” Parlapiano is recognized on the 2025 Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50 as a result.

At Tubi, entrepreneurial marketing isn’t a style or stage—it’s a system that treats campaigns like content, viewers like collaborators, and disruption as strategy. This approach and philosophy go beyond the status quo responsibility for driving tune-in and audience growth and are directly impacting content development and advertiser demand.

In just two years under CEO Anjali Sud, Parlapiano’s leadership and a marketing team that shares her entrepreneurial ethos have driven a near doubling of Tubi’s monthly active users (MAU), from 50 to 97 million MAU.

A Challenger Strategy That Rewrites the Rules

When Parlapiano arrived at Tubi, the product worked, but there was no real brand, just a name. “We didn’t have a brand,” she recalls. “We just said, ‘free, largest content library, here it all is.’” Her first challenge and step was to turn this utility pitch into a point of view.

“We had hit our limit with our previous voice, tone, and visual identity,” she says. “It wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t inviting, it wasn’t mischievous.” So, Parlapiano and her team started from scratch, and just six months later, debuted “Interface Interruption,” a Super Bowl spot that was so purposefully and creatively disruptive that many viewers were left thinking someone had changed the channel.

Parlapiano’s brief to her agency, Mischief NFA, was simple. Get the audience to ask, “What the (eff) is Tubi?” And on media’s largest stage, Tubi and Parlapiano introduced a disruptive, irreverent, and unapologetically audience-first brand.

This positioning—prioritizing personalized content discovery over prestige, big-budget originals—has shaped every expression since, from product UX to B2B creative. Instead of centering celebrity-led hits, Tubi surfaces niche genres, cult favorites, and algorithmically curated recommendations that reflect what individual viewers actually want to watch, and campaigns like “Tubi Is More Popular Than” leaned into cultural truths over content hype, comparing Tubi’s popularity to everything from pickleball to babies.

Traditionally and with few exceptions, like Disney, Pixar and A24, studio brands tend not to matter or mean much, and content is always king. And while content remains king for Tubi and Parlapiano, Tubi’s brand is creating a meaningful context. As she tells Forbes, “the brand is what’s attracting advertisers. It’s not just about our marquee shows—it’s about values alignment and a clear point of view.”

Parlapiano believes being forgettable is the biggest risk in a deeply competitive category—a mindset that’s led to campaigns like “Free for Everyone,” which set out to dramatize Tubi’s radical accessibility. The ads paired unexpected contrasts—like teachers raising future world leaders alongside kids hurling rocks—not to endorse bad behavior but to underscore a central truth: Tubi really is for everyone. Even when the work was misread, Parlapiano didn’t blink. “Sometimes the work is polarizing,” she says. “But they remember it.”

From Campaigns to Pipelines

Parlapiano knows that brand-building is business-building, and her entrepreneurial approach goes beyond it. One of her boldest bets is Stubios, a fan-fueled studio and platform that she helped launch in partnership with FOX tech and product teams. Inspired by TikTok, Reddit, and the ethos of Web3, Stubios lets social creators pitch content directly to Tubi and then empowers fans to weigh in on what gets made.

“Stubios is the most entrepreneurial thing I’ve done at Tubi,” she says. “It passes the camera to anyone who has a story to tell and puts the power to greenlight in the hands of the viewer.” The first class of projects goes live this year, offering new titles and a new talent pipeline grounded in access, collaboration, and cultural relevance.

The same commitment to listening shaped “Sidelined: The QB and Me,” a teen sports romance rooted in Wattpad fandoms—a storytelling platform popular with Gen Z for serialized, fan-driven fiction—and built around creator Noah Beck. “It took me two years to get us to just make it,” Parlapiano says. But when it premiered, it became Tubi’s biggest original debut, generating memes across NFL and high school feeds alike.

Another insight-driven pivot was “The Z-Suite,” originally developed as a reality show. But after sensing it wouldn’t resonate with Gen Z, her team recast it as a scripted workplace dramedy. “They can tell when something is overproduced,” she says. The pivot worked—and the project now taps into viewer authenticity and industry-insider humor.

A Startup Culture at Scale

For Parlapiano, entrepreneurial marketing isn’t just about launching bold ideas—it’s about building the conditions that allow them to thrive. “We put together the best tactical plan,” she says, “but the things that are going to have outsized returns are big creative ideas.”

Her team is structured to think this way. Everyone is encouraged to move fast, challenge norms, and contribute surprising solutions, regardless of role or rank. “The team doesn’t ever feel siloed in how we solve business problems,” she says. “No idea is too crazy.” To keep the thinking fresh, Parlapiano regularly brings in outside voices to help reset perspectives and jumpstart new directions. “Get away from your desk, take a walk, take a shower—whatever clears your head.” It's not just a cultural quirk—it’s how she makes space for the unexpected ideas that drive impact.

That philosophy extends to external partners, too. “Radical transparency, directness, and respect for the craft are critical,” she says. “Our agency partners are an extension of my team, not vendors.” She actively seeks collaborators with what she calls “dangerous ideas”—the ones bold enough to push the work somewhere new.

And as Tubi scales across global markets like the U.K. and Mexico, Parlapiano is committed to keeping that edge intact. “We never want to lose the spirit of being the underdog,” she says. “Even though we aren’t the underdog anymore, it’s a grit that I don’t ever want us to lose.”

At Tubi, entrepreneurial marketing isn’t a phase or philosophy. Under Parlapiano’s leadership, it’s a framework redefining what a CMO can drive when they’re willing to take the right risks.