As digital platforms tighten their grip on ad budgets, Comcast Advertising has a bold plan to put TV back on the offensive. TV is tired of playing defence. At this year’s Cannes Lions, Comcast Advertising arrives with a bold proposition: it’s time for premium video to reclaim its share of the advertising pie from the tech titans.
“We’ve spent the last two years building a vision for how TV not only competes with digital but starts speaking the same language, performance, attribution, simplicity,” says Thomas Bremond, newly appointed Managing Director of Comcast Advertising International.
With digital platforms like Meta, TikTok, and YouTube dominating global media buying thanks to their unified access and performance metrics, Comcast is betting on a reinvention of TV as a sleek, results-driven platform, without compromising its unmatched brand-building power.
A core part of this strategy is simplifying TV’s notoriously complex buying process. Comcast is aiming to make TV inventory as seamless to access as digital platforms, thanks to tools like Universal Ads, a multi-publisher marketplace launched in the U.S. earlier this year. Set to begin beta trials after Cannes, it’s designed with one purpose: to make TV as intuitive for media buyers as Meta or Snap.
“Until TV becomes as easy to buy as social, we’ll keep losing budget to tech platforms,” Bremond says bluntly. “Universal Ads was designed from the ground up to mirror the buying experience of digital because that’s what buyers expect.”
With tight integrations to ecommerce platforms like Shopify and GoDaddy, Universal Ads also targets the overlooked but crucial market of small and medium-sized businesses.
“It’s not just about winning back big brands. SMBs are a massive opportunity that TV has historically missed.”
To compete globally, Comcast Advertising has undergone a significant internal transformation. It has unified its U.S. operations under a single Media Solutions team and retired the Effectv brand. Internationally, Bremond now oversees a newly expanded Comcast Advertising International division, which includes a global Media Solutions arm.
This team will work alongside NBCUniversal, Sky, and other international media owners to create a centralised buying experience for premium inventory across borders, a key appeal to global media traders managing multi-market campaigns.
“It’s about presenting TV as a global platform, just like YouTube or TikTok,” says Bremond. “If a brand wants to run a campaign across five markets from a single buying hub, they need to be able to access premium video inventory just as easily.”
Technology alone isn’t enough. Bremond emphasises that transparency and trust are critical components of the new ecosystem. Comcast is focused on ensuring data safety, clear delineation between media representation and neutral tech services, and building confidence among media owners to share performance data.
“It’s no secret that TV hasn’t always been credited properly for driving search or digital activation,” he notes. “That’s changing. Attribution and performance measurement are front and centre now.”
Collaboration is the mantra, from aligning with Versant’s portfolio of cable networks to leveraging FreeWheel’s technology across the value chain. “This isn’t about siloed efforts,” says Bremond. “It’s a collective push to make TV stronger.”
For years, tech platforms thrived by exploiting TV’s fragmentation. But now, as advertisers search for fresh reach and more accountability in a saturated digital landscape, TV sees its opening.
“Marketers are hitting the same audiences over and over online,” Bremond argues. “TV offers incremental reach they can’t get anywhere else. This is our moment to show how powerful and performance-driven, TV really is.”
At Cannes Lions 2025, Comcast Advertising is making a clear statement: TV is no longer content to play catch-up. It’s entering a new era, smarter, faster, and finally ready to go on the offensive.