The gap between national brand advertising and local business marketing is beginning to close. As streaming TV, AI-powered creative tools, and advanced targeting become more accessible, multi-location brands and SMB-focused platforms are gaining the ability to deliver “prime-time” style CTV campaigns with the precision, scalability, and measurement traditionally reserved for major advertisers.
Under the broader heading of democratization of tech and media for SMBs, the barriers for TV and video ads have dropped dramatically. SMBs have always wanted their own TV ads, but they’ve been traditionally out of their reach, due to prohibitive cost, time, and production capabilities.
So what has changed? Boiling it down to two main components, there’s production and distribution. Production has come down in cost and accessibility, given underlying advances in generative AI. Photorealistic ads can be done in seconds without actors or film sets, while the cost approaches zero.
As for distribution, CTV has opened things up, which involves a domino effect of greater supply, lowered cost, and myriad content-targeting opportunities. The digital infrastructure that underpins CTV also, unlocks programmatic placement and measurement. This brings online ad economics to TV.
“For the first time in the history of television advertising, the local businesses that define Main Street — the plumber, the dentist, the personal injury lawyer, the regional franchise, the multi-location brand — can run on the same premium inventory as the national brands you see during prime time,” Universal Ads Head of Platform Partnerships & GTM, Greg Lieber said on stage during the recent L26 event.
Leveling the Playing Field
Prior to these developments, the barriers to entry for SMBs traced back to one issue, says Lieber: TV ads were built for national brands. They have agency relationships, dedicated media buyers, and budgets measured in millions. SMBs were shut out because the TV infrastructure wasn’t built for them.
But a few developments in CTV have specifically knocked down these barriers – many of them having to do with greater inventory through an explosion of content, channels, and streaming apps. On top of that, self-serve tools such as Universal Ads (more on that in a bit) have come along to level the playing field.
Beyond leveling the playing field, CTV brought several capabilities that sweetened the deal for large and small advertisers. Lieber points to how it took a traditionally upper-funnel medium and made it a full-funnel play. And based on the digital capabilities noted above, advertisers have more measurability.
Lieber points to three funnel stages. The awareness stage is supported by full-screen, non-skippable ads on the biggest screen in the home. In the consideration phase, TV ads can amplify everything else an advertiser does. And in the conversion phase, campaigns are tied to measurable downstream activity.
“For a local HVAC company, that means more calls,” said Lieber. “For a regional dental practice, that means more appointments. For a multi-location franchise, that means attributable revenue from a channel that is hard to measure.”
What It Is and What It Does
Going deeper, all of the above materializes in Universal Ads, which is Comcast’s self-serve CTV platform. To break down what it is and what it does, we’ll map it to the democratized functions that were introduced earlier: ad creation and ad distribution. Let’s take those one at a time.
When it comes to ad creation, the biggest gripe Lieber hears from local businesses about TV ads is the same one noted above: the barriers to video production. ‘We don’t have a commercial. We can’t afford to make one. We’re not a Super Bowl brand,’ said Lieber to paraphrase the common refrain from SMBs.
Universal Ads’ answer is AI-generated video creation. Partnering with Creatify, SMBs can enter their website or other visual assets to get strikingly photorealistic ads created. They can then customize videos further using specific visuals, avatars in the SMB’s likeness, and branded scripts.
As for distribution, Universal Ads offers a self-serve ads manager. This includes budget controls, analytics, and audience targeting. SMBs can also select CTV channels such as NBCUniversal, Roku, Fox, Warner Bros Discovery, and Paramount – altogether reaching 90 percent of U.S. households.
“The plumber here in Houston can be on NBC tonight,” said Lieber. “The personal injury lawyer in Pittsburgh can run in front of White Lotus this week. The multi-location franchise can launch a market-by-market campaign by Friday. No agency. No insertion order. No minimum spend commitment.”
