YouTube TV is betting big on the Super Bowl, and the theme of its campaign is, meh.
No, really. That’s the theme: “Don’t settle for meh.” The streaming video platform has lined up a star-studded lineup of talent to help tell that story, including Jason and Kylie Kelce, Gordon Ramsay, Christian McCaffrey, and David Blaine, who transforms into a “meh-gician” for the spot, poking fun at his own public persona by making a donut “disappear.”
“Most of my friends that know me, they look at everything else [I do] as ridiculous. This is going to be the first thing they look at that makes sense,” Blaine tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview. “Like this is a side that the people that know me the best. That’s what they expect from me, actually.”
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Blaine’s segment is subversive, with the famed magician playing up the absurdity of the situation.
“It’s something that I never do, which is just make fun of myself completely. Lots of people always think that I have like, some trick behind the stunts, and they assume that what I’m doing in the actual ad is something that I actually do,” he says. “So it was a funny chance to do something that made the people that know me best, like my brother, spit his food out on the street. Because it’s just ridiculous, but it’s also amazing.”
The YouTube TV spot will debut just before Super Bowl kickoff, with future airings during NBC’s coverage of the Milan Olympics. And it comes at a pivotal time for the streaming platform, which is set to launch a slate of cheaper genre bundles in the next few months.
For Blaine, there’s also a personal connection, having hooked himself up to giant helium-filled balloons to soar above the clouds in a stunt for YouTube.
“One of my highlights in life was working with YouTube when I flew the balloons up to 25,000 feet for my daughter, and they let me create this incredible collage of colorful balloons, and they took a big risk,” Blaine recalls, adding that he was initially unsure when they asked him to do a Super Bowl ad. “And then, out of nowhere, as I was on the wire to make a decision, I was challenged on Instagram by Patrick Renna [one of the stars of The Sandlot], who, if you look at his Instagram, you’ll realize he is one of Hollywood’s leading men since 1993 and when he challenged me with this feat, I realized, now is the time to step up. And I called back immediately, and I said, I’m in.”
