You made me think I was crazy because I remembered mostly the commercials featuring the seraphites hanging scenes, the dance with Dina and Ellie kissing, and some stuff with Ellie fighting Wolves. So I verified, and you are misremembering. Just fast forwarded through every ad for the game before release, Joel is only even in, MAAAYBE half of them, if that. And barely in them at all in most of the ones he is. The one that features him the most is almost all footage from the first game. I'm also pretty sure that the devs were open about that fact that Ellie would be the focus of the game from the time it was announced.

Link: https://youtu.be/fZaNdTmmcpk