The Refresh News: The Future of TV Ads – AI, SMBs & Measurement with James Borow from Universal Ads

Summary

Podcast Summary: AdTechGod Pod – "The Refresh News: The Future of TV Ads – AI, SMBs & Measurement with James Borow from Universal Ads"

Release Date: March 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of AdTechGod Pod titled "The Refresh News: The Future of TV Ads – AI, SMBs & Measurement," host Ad Tech God engages in an insightful conversation with James Borow, Vice President of Product and Engineering at Universal Ads, a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation. The discussion centers on Universal Ads' innovative approach to democratizing television advertising for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), strategic partnerships, and advanced measurement techniques.

Partnership with Ramp: Bridging the Gap for SMBs

Ad Tech God opens the dialogue by highlighting Universal Ads' partnership with Ramp, a prominent corporate card provider servicing over 30,000 businesses and valued at $13 billion following its latest funding round.

James Borow elaborates on this collaboration:

"Our goal with Universal Ads is to make TV as easy to buy as an Instagram ad... Ramp is one of the best places for that. We want to ensure that businesses using Ramp know that Universal Ads is the place where they can actually grow their business."
[02:12]

This partnership aims to integrate TV advertising seamlessly into the financial workflows of SMBs, reducing the intimidation factor traditionally associated with TV ad purchasing.

Accessible TV Advertising for SMBs

The conversation shifts to Universal Ads' mission to simplify TV advertising for SMBs. James Borow emphasizes the importance of making premium video content accessible:

"We talk about premium video, we're talking about the world's leading publishers when it comes to TV and TV content... making this accessible as easy as buying an Instagram ad."
[03:21]

Universal Ads has secured partnerships with top-tier publishers like A&E, AMC, NBC, Paramount, and Warner Brothers, ensuring that SMBs can access high-quality TV inventory without the complexity typically involved.

Affordable and User-Friendly Solutions

Addressing affordability, James Borow highlights Universal Ads' commitment to lowering financial barriers:

"You can get up and running on Universal Ads for a $500 budget. You can use your credit card, you can use your Ramp card, and you'll get automatic ad credits for it."
[05:24]

By enabling campaigns with modest budgets and providing AI-driven creative tools, Universal Ads ensures that even businesses with limited marketing resources can effectively leverage TV advertising.

The Role of AI in Creative Production and Measurement

AI plays a pivotal role in Universal Ads' strategy to streamline ad creation and performance measurement. James Borow discusses the integration of generative AI:

"If you want to use generative AI, you can... we're going to enable that. These things are all table stakes."
[07:22]

The platform offers:

• AI Creative Partners: Assisting in generating high-quality TV ad creatives from existing social media content.
• Measurement Tools: Advanced analytics to demonstrate the incremental sales and enhanced performance TV ads bring to other marketing channels.

Ad Tech God probes into how AI assists SMBs lacking experience in traditional TV ad production, to which James Borow responds:

"We're taking away the tax that has been put on Instagram advertisers to get on TV... we start to see that TV is really performant."
[05:24]

Measuring TV Ad Performance

A critical challenge in TV advertising has been demonstrating its impact. James Borow underscores Universal Ads' focus on robust measurement capabilities:

"We're going to help prove that TV does really drive sales and make your other channels more effective."
[08:38]

By employing sophisticated measurement frameworks, Universal Ads aims to validate the efficacy of TV ads, reinforcing their value alongside digital marketing efforts.

The Future of TV Advertising

Looking ahead, James Borow envisions a transformative shift in how TV advertising is perceived and utilized by businesses of all sizes:

"By the end of this year, we're going to make TV advertising as easy as buying an Instagram ad."
[08:38]

He posits that TV will emerge as a highly effective medium, complementing digital channels and acting as the "new second screen" that enhances overall marketing performance.

Conclusion

Ad Tech God wraps up the episode by congratulating James Borow and applauding Universal Ads' groundbreaking efforts to democratize TV advertising. James Borow expresses gratitude and optimism for the future, emphasizing Universal Ads' role in reshaping the advertising landscape for SMBs.

"We're excited to play a part in making TV advertising accessible and proving its performance for advertisers."
[06:26]

This episode highlights the pivotal innovations and strategic partnerships driving Universal Ads' mission to make TV advertising accessible, affordable, and measurable for businesses of all sizes, heralding a new era in the advertising technology industry.

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Key Takeaways:

• Universal Ads is making TV advertising accessible to SMBs by simplifying the purchasing process and integrating with financial tools like Ramp.
• Premium Video inventory from top-tier publishers is now available to smaller businesses through user-friendly platforms.
• AI Integration facilitates the creation of high-quality TV ads and provides robust performance measurement, making TV an integral part of comprehensive marketing strategies.
• The future of TV advertising is poised to be as straightforward and impactful as digital ad platforms, enhancing the overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Transcript

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[Ad Tech God]

Welcome to another episode of the Refresh by marketecture Media. I'm your host, Ad Tech God. The Refresh is where we bring you the latest and greatest in advertising news. Don't forget to follow the Market Texture account on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube for more news Related content, some housekeeping items we have Miami Lights taking place in Miami, Florida on April 28th in partnership with Madtech and Apparium. If you have not registered, please do the website is www.attech.events.com so to the news today we have James Burrow, the Vice President of Product and Engineering at Universal Ads, which is a part of Comcast Corporation, a global media and technology company that connects people to moments and experiences that matter. James, welcome to the pod.

[James Burrow]

Thank you for having me. As you know, I'm a huge fan and been incredible just to see how much Antec guy has grown over the years. So honored to be here and appreciate you making the time come a long.

[Ad Tech God]

Way since the podcast when I was on your podcast. What was that a year ago?

[James Burrow]

It is. I can't wait to see where you take it next. It is very cool.

[Ad Tech God]

We're having fun. That's what matters. James so I'm a huge fan of the SMB being a core focus. It was one of my predictions for 2025 and it is all coming together nicely. It seems like Universal Ads and many other companies in the space are really starting to focus in on making connected television accessible to SMBs. But your news that you released with your partnership with Ramp was really interesting because nobody's really taken that angle and I see a ton of value to it. Can you give me an idea of what that means and what does it mean for Universal Ads to be able to make television accessible to so many SMBs?

[James Burrow]

Yeah, I mean, I think like from a very high level, our goal with Universal Ads is how do we just make TV as easy to buy as an Instagram ad, right? Like almost all of these digitally native businesses and growing businesses are advertising on social and they're curious about how TV works. But it's pretty intimidating. And so our strategy is to go to where these businesses run their business. Right. And Ramp is one of the best places for that Ramp. If people don't know about it, it's the corporate card for most of these growing businesses. They've got 30,000 customers. They just announced the most recent funding round. They're worth $13 billion. And we want to make sure that businesses that run all their financial automation on Ramp know that universal ads the place where they can actually grow their business. And so that's why the partnership's so important.

[Ad Tech God]

You mentioned the importance of, you know, premium video and making that accessible in an easy to use UI for those that, you know, maybe don't have experience with working with overly complicated demand side platforms or buying platforms. Could you tell me what, what it is you mean by premium video and what type of inventory they'll be able to access and why is it so much of a game changer for these marketers in the space?

[James Burrow]

Yeah, so we talk about premium video, we're talking about like the world's leading publishers when it comes to, you know, TV and TV content. So we've already announced our first set of partners and they include A&E, AMC, DirecTV, Fox, NBC, Paramount, Roku, Univision, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Zumo and more. So these are what people think about when they think about premium video and tv, but they've been really, really hard to access for kind of a normal business. And so again, our kind of first principle is how do we just make this accessible? How do we make it as easy as buying an Instagram ad or a TikTok ad? And so to do that you have to do a few things. One is you have to go ahead and make the tools look like the tools they've used in the past. You have to help them figure out how do they actually have television quality creative.

[Ad Tech God]

Right.

[James Burrow]

A lot of these people just have vertical video ads. And then three is again, I think we have to meet them where they are. So we've taken an API first approach to this. You know, we've launched our ads API and marketing API. We're going to be integrated kind of wherever these businesses run their business. I talk about it sort of internally as like a really advertiser kind of empathy first approach. Right. Let's like decrease all the tax on them and just make this easy for them to go ahead and run on tv. And I'd say as part of that, you know, I previously was at Snapchat and I've worked with a lot of the social networks. We all know that TV ads actually make social ads work better. Like, the social networks are very aware how performant TV is. I think TV just has been too hard to buy, and so that's what we're really trying to work on.

[Ad Tech God]

So historically, television has really been a focus or a medium for massive companies that have large budgets that could either advertise nationally or locally on their local TV stations. How is this going to be affordable to these smaller medium businesses? Is there less barriers like you mentioned? Are there budget restrictions? How does it work for them where they may not have $500,000 to spend or a million dollars to spend?

[James Burrow]

Yeah, you can get up and running on universal ads for a $500 budget. You can use your credit card, you can use your ramp card, and you'll get automatic ad credits for it. We have integrations with AI creative partners, so if you don't have creative, we can go ahead and get it created for you inside the ui. It's really kind of all of the tax that has been put on sort of the. I'm going to call it, like the Instagram advertiser to get on tv, we're taking that away. And when you start to take that away, you start to see that TV is really performant. Now, TV's different than social. In most cases, you can't click on it. But, you know, I think, you know, there's a mutual friend of ours, Eric Sufert, talks about, like, the medium is the measurement. And so, like, you know, we're trying to get to a place where let's make this easy to go ahead and buy and then let's help you go ahead and measure it to actually show that it drives value. And we have some pretty exciting partnerships coming up on that front relatively soon. That really excited to get out there.

[Ad Tech God]

Is it partnerships related to creative production and AI measurement?

[James Burrow]

Yeah, you'll see us.

[Ad Tech God]

Okay.

[James Burrow]

Yeah, you'll see us double down. And like, I am totally convinced that TV is undervalued in terms of how much it drives sales. And so I think you'll see us do a lot of things to help these advertisers really prove that. Right. That we have to help them see that. But I think that TV has an incredible hand to play, and we're excited to play a part in it.

[Ad Tech God]

Well, I think it comes down to the old saying, like, if a tree falls down in the forest and nobody's there to hear it, did it make a noise or not? The measurement's been a challenge. You have to be able to measure the performance. If you measure it, I think you'll find that it does make a sound and that it does resonate and it does deliver on the value that advertisers are looking for when it comes to creative production. These smaller businesses may have one person, two people that work in marketing that maybe aren't familiar with creating these 30 second video spots. How is AI playing a role in this? And is it generative AI, is it just easy to stitch together videos and create the ads? How is it working for you guys?

[James Burrow]

It's all the above. So because we've taken this API first approach, you'll see us bring in sort of the leading creative AI models into the workflow. So if you want to use generative AI, you can. If you want to use AI to convert your Instagram ad to a TV ad, you can. If you want to start from scratch and use prompting for it, we're going to enable that. So, you know, to me, these things are all table stakes. If you go into Google or Meta or even Amazon's tools and TikTok's tools, this stuff's coming, right? The idea that you're gonna put this big of a barrier against what is probably the most impactful thing of tv, which is it's a full screen, it's the biggest screen in your house. You know, it's totally sort of counterproductive. So our goal is to make that as easy as possible. And that's really been the main excuse when you talk to like a scaling, you know, called like the Shopify brand, who's really active on Instagram and TikTok. And we were saying, why aren't you on TV? They're like, I don't have creative. That's the first thing to hear.

[Ad Tech God]

Right.

[James Burrow]

So we got to get that one off the board.

[Ad Tech God]

Definitely. What's this mean as a, as a bigger picture for Universal ads is this. Are we finally moving into this era where we're. Television advertising is easy and simple and accessible to businesses of all sizes? What's the direction and what's the end goal?

[James Burrow]

Yes. Yeah. The answer is yes. This is going to be by the end of this year. I think we're going to make TV advertising as easy as buying an Instagram ad. There's absolutely no reason why it can't be. And then I think we also are going to, I think, help educate the market. That TV does really help drive sales. Now, again, it will drive sales because it basically drives incremental sales. Right. And it also makes your other channels more effective. And I think instinctively we all know that. Again, like internally the thing I talk about with my team a lot is that like in some ways TV is the new second screen and that's okay. Like we all know we like watch TV and then you kind of buy things on your phone, right? And right now Social gets way too much credit for that conversion. Like we can feel how much TV does. It's our job to go prove that and I think, I think that's what Universal Ads really represents is like we're going to help prove how performant this is for advertisers.

[Ad Tech God]

Awesome. James, thank you so much for being here. Thank you to Universal Ads for having you as my guest. I wish you guys the best of luck and congrats on this new partnership.

[James Burrow]

Thanks man. I really appreciate it. And grants and everything in your world as well.

[Ad Tech God]

Thank you. Speak soon.