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Unlocking Retail Media is the essential podcast for leaders and marketers navigating the rapidly evolving world of retail advertising. We move beyond day-to-day operations to explore the strategic future of the industry, covering major investment trends, the shift to hybrid marketplace models, and the existential disruption posed by Agentic Commerce. Host James Avery brings in top industry veterans and visionary founders to analyze how ground-breaking technology is transforming customer journeys, influencing product catalogs, and forcing retailers to rethink on-site, in-store, and digital media strategies to remain competitive in the modern age.
James Borow: [00:00:00] When people see your brand on tv, there is just like this perception still that like, oh wow, they like made it, they're like on television. And then that actually basically conditions people to go ahead, um, and be more likely to transact when your ads are shown on like social networks. So like we actually just put out this study about it that like not only does TV drive look real roas, but that actually makes all your other media perform better.
James Avery: Welcome to Unlocking Retail Media, the podcast where we explore the evolving world of retail media from data strategy to monetization and everything in between. This is the podcast that breaks down how retailers can build smarter data-driven media networks by aligning with what brands truly need from scalable ad solutions and meaningful metrics to cross channel attribution and programmatic strategy.
Welcome to Unlocking Retail Media. Uh, today I am excited for a conversation that sits at the intersection of tv, digital media, and where advertising is heading next. [00:01:00] Uh, my guest is James Barrow, uh, an advisor, a friend of mine, uh, one of the most respected voices in advertising and retail media. Uh, James runs Universal Ads at Comcast where he is helping redefine what self-serve advertising looks like for premium tv.
Uh, James was deeply involved in launching universal ads, opening up premium inventory to brands of all sizes. And making self-serve TV advertising that is actually usable. Uh, and you're starting to see this, we'll talk a little bit about it with the, uh, Olympics coming up. There's some, some interesting things going on there.
Uh, so today we're gonna dig into how TV keeps evolving, uh, towards digital, what universal ads is getting right. Uh, where things still break, maybe dabble in agentic commerce. Uh, and maybe we'll talk about some vibe coding because I hear, I hear James is having fun there. Uh, and then, uh, but yeah, thanks.
Thanks for doing this. It was great to have you on. Thanks,
James Borow: bud. I, I, I, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than doing this with you right now. Congrats on all the success with this podcast and everything you guys are doing with the Kele. You know, I'm a huge fan, so [00:02:00] bumped to beer.
James Avery: Awesome. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that'd be better is if we were in Vegas doing this right now, that would be better than this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. Next, next time. Next time. Yeah. Um, but yeah, let's, let's talk universal ads, like how, uh, you know, I know you were kind of, you know your background a little bit. I know you were at, you started the company. You sold that company, you were at Snapchat, you know, and then now you kind of ended up at, at Comcast.
How did, how did that happen? I,
James Borow: yeah, that was, I, I, first of all, I love being at Comcast. It's incredible, but I would be lying if I didn't predict, I would end up working at Comcast if you would've said that, you know, 10 years ago. Uh, but yeah, it was crazy. I, you know, it really, it started when, uh, myself and Daniel Druer, uh, who, you know, um, he's our VP of product.
Um, we were consulting for Comcast, um, and this was maybe a year and a half ago, something like that. Uh, and it really kind of, the consulting project was. Look at the sort of collective assets of [00:03:00] Comcast. Like how could they be used in a way to really kind of take TV advertising to the next level and just make it more approachable and really, you know, put it sort of on par with how advertisers think about social.
Just like when you start a business, you just, like the first thing you do right now is you'd probably go launch a meta ad or run a Google ad. Like what did, like, why can't TV be in that conversation? So that was really, I would say like the initial prompt and then the more we learned about the collective assets.
Comcast and all the pieces and how you can sort of put them together. Uh, we kind of just fell in love with the idea and so that's how we ended up joining Comcast full time. You know, now my team's about 60 people, probably 30 of us work together at Snap or at some other social network. It's a, it's sort of our whole crew.
Um, but yeah, I mean, the thing we sort of wake up every day thinking about is just like, how can make TV advertising as easy to buy as humanly possible? How do we go ahead and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of it? We know it works incredibly well, but it's TV and [00:04:00] it's like, it's daunting to many people.
And so like, we're just trying to, just trying to make it as easy as humanly possible for people to see how great of a format and
James Avery: a great
James Borow: of medium it
James Avery: is. And I think this is, I mean, this is a big difference in TV advertising. That's always been the case, right? Like it's, you know, traditionally it's Coca-Cola and Budweiser and it's, it's the, the large brands are dominating tv.
But I think you've always had like a, you've always had a passion for the, like, you know, long tail, for lack of a better word. Yeah.
James Borow: Well, yeah. I think the, you know, I guess there's two things of it. So one is you look at like meta and you look at Google and like, you know, the, the torso you know of advertisers are, is like the key, right?
Like every new digital business, you know, is built on top of these platforms. And so like, you know. If you're gonna be reliant just on the Fortune 500, you're missing out on a huge amount of density and diversity. And just even for a user experience standpoint, it's like sucks to see the same ads over and over again.
Yeah. So I think that's part of the reason why I just like, I [00:05:00] like the idea of making it more sort of democratized. Um, but I think the other thing is, is that, you know, tv like. It has all these built-in advantages, right? It's like the biggest screen in your house. It's surrounded by premium content. It's an unskipable ad, right?
Like there's, it has all these like huge things that like looking at like Snapchat where it's like tiny little ad people were skipping through it. People were looking at it for a second, right? They, yeah, it was surrounded by God knows what and you know, it's just like, um, it, to me, you know, like it has all the TV has all of the advantages except for the fact it's hard to buy.
Um, and so that's really kind of where, um, my team is just really focused on and, you know, we kind of tell people it's like a little controversial, maybe like saying this from the Comcast perspective, but like we just sort of di think of TV ads as why can't it be like a 15 or 32nd horizontal Instagram ad, right?
Like, what's like really the difference for an advertiser at the end of the day. Uh, and so if we can get you in that mindset. And sort of make it where you're willing [00:06:00] to try and experiment and put out ads that maybe don't, you know, aren't perfect on day one, but you can iterate, you can start to have a, a platform and a channel that like competes against the social networks.
And, and we're seeing that now, like people are finally kind of understanding like, oh, this is, like, this is the same thing but different. Um, so it's been really just exciting to see it all happen. It seems like the
James Avery: big, a big piece too is like measurement, right? Is like, how do you, because I feel like, like a good, like if we, if we just pick a random company, like, 'cause I was thinking about when you were saying that, you know, like if we look at like Vori, right?
Vori was somebody that you saw. All over meta Google, you know, and then it was like TikTok everywhere. But now it's like, you know, you're watching a A game and you'll see a Vori ad and you're like, oh, they've made it right, or they sold enough to like get there. But like the question is, can you get vori there a lot earlier in their like ad journey?
Yeah.
James Borow: All of them should be there pretty much like as soon as possible. I'd say that's one thing, like there's just no reason not to, like with universal ads, there's no [00:07:00] minimum. You can go spend 50 bucks, just try it out, right? Just to see kind of, so I think that's one thing. But the, the measurement thing, what really happened is that like the walled gardens basically shot themselves in the foot.
So because the walled gardens basically were doing all of this first party measurement, and because most of these advertisers were running across, let's call it like four to five walling gardens, what advertisers started realizing is if you added up all the conversions across the four different walled gardens, it showed you had like five times more sales than you actually had.
Right. And so that sort of. The wall gardens pushed it so far that everyone became so skeptical, and that's what's led to this whole push towards incrementality. And so with incrementality now a channel like TV actually kind of can play on the same field, and so. Like for us, like we have our reporting APIs, so like companies like Work Magic and House and Measured and sort of that whole industry that used to just measure the performance of social now can do an integration that [00:08:00] looks just like social, right?
Our APIs basically are carbon copy of the social APIs and now an advertiser can actually do geo lift and can run these studies and see like what does TV actually do. And so it's a little bit of like. There's two, I'd say huge tailwinds that we have. One is this shift towards incrementality, right?
Because now a channel that you can't click on, right, like TV ads are not clickable yet by and large, um, can actually be measured kind of apples to apples. And then the other one was creative. And like up until really this whole shift with AI creative was a huge barrier. Like to go shoot a 15 or 32nd ad two years ago was incredibly daunting.
Like, but right now you could go. Log into Universal Ads or go to Reify or space back, like you could have a TV worthy ad. You know, you can't one shot it yet, but within 30 minutes you can have a pretty good ad that you could run today if you wanted to. So those two things have been just like huge for us.
James Avery: I'm gonna try this out. After this. We're [00:09:00] gonna advertise this podcast on tv. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take, we're gonna take it. We're gonna you some
James Borow: ad, I'll get you some ad credits in here. Some ads, yeah. Gimme some ad
James Avery: credits. We're gonna run it and we're gonna see, we'll see. We'll see what we get.
James Borow: You. You can run custom audiences like we'll.
Put in your email list. Um, we'll see. We should record you running a universal ads campaign. It is,
James Avery: yeah. Yeah. If you've
James Borow: bought a meta ad or you bought a Snap ad or a read an ad. It is, it is the, the exact same experience.
James Avery: Yeah. That would be fun. We should do that. Record that. And I, when it comes to measurement, I've got, uh, I've got Cado coming on for the next episode, so.
Amazing. Well, we're gonna go deep, we're gonna go deep on measurement with him. You
James Borow: guys should do it at the golf course. Uh, with a walking. We should, we should do like a.
James Avery: Like a Bob does sports, but we're talking, uh, measurement. Yeah.
James Borow: Yeah.
James Avery: I, I could like fly in for that and record it. This is, we're already, we've getting too many, too many, uh, too many more jobs we have to do after this now.
Yeah. We're fighting up too much. So, so, um, so fundamentally universal ads. [00:10:00] Self-serve. You can spend 50 bucks, any brand can go do it. AI's unlocked the ability to kind of create these, these. And then is it, you know, is it really any tv? Is it still restricted? Is it still, you know, when you think about like sometimes what people think of as like CTV versus.
Premium tv? Like how do, how do you guys think about that? It's just,
James Borow: yeah, we have over, there's a, there's over 20 publishers that are, um, part of what we call the Universal Audience Network. So that goes from like NBC to Peacock, paramount plus Fox to be HBO Max, like the, pretty much the biggest apps you can think of, um, you can, uh, advertise across via universal ads.
Um, and we're adding more. We're gonna expand globally, you'll be able to run a TV campaign. You'll be able to like select Chicago and London and just run it simultaneously the same way you could do it if you were buying like a meta ad. Um, so yeah, it's, it is like, and, and sort of the beauty of doing this within Comcast.
Is Comcast owns FreeWheel. [00:11:00] And so all this is built, you know, behind the scenes on a, the FreeWheel stack. And so FreeWheel is connected directly to these publishers. When you run a Universal Ads campaign, you literally only pay for ads. There's no fees on top of it. We're not arbitraging you. If you look at the other CTV players in this space, they are taking gigantic margins.
So it's almost like Facebook was back in the early 2000 tens where people were like, oh, Facebook doesn't work. And it's like, well, no, Facebook didn't work because the middleman. Book 50%, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so we are trying to say, listen, like you should just like, just buy ads, don't pay for anything else.
And Comcast is in a unique situation to be able to do that because we monetize the supply side. Um, so it's just like a really unique can that makes it extremely aligned advertisers. And it's why, you know, the number of case studies, the number of measurement studies, measurement tests they run like this is like.
It is, it is shockingly performant, right? Because [00:12:00] you've just removed so much of unnecessary tasks.
James Avery: And so how do you think, I mean, so like, and I know the, I know, you know, we've known each other a while, so I, I know you're a champion of this kind of the, the torso, right? Yeah. How do you, how do you think retailers, 'cause you, you work with a lot of different retailers and kind of, uh, over the years, like how do you, how should they be thinking about this?
Like, I still feel like most retailers are focused on, you know, getting the Procter and Gamble dollars or working with the big agency.
James Borow: Yeah, I think the RMNs in particular, so I think all of them should be extending the CTV. They have like incredible first party data, right? Like obviously you know that, and it's like a, just a no-brainer.
I think for them. I think they are, they're in the situation where they actually can justify building a business model by. Marking up the media because they have data to append to it. The fact that there's the middlemen right now doing that is crazy, right? Like, and the fact that a lot of these retailers are even using middlemen.
So it's, they're, you know, the retailers are using their data and that it's being marked up by the, the middleman. It's just like [00:13:00] a highly inefficient, um, ecosystem. So I think the retailers should be. They should be using us to do CTV, um, uh, basically reach extension and like, I would say that if I wasn't even building this, but I really think they should.
Um, and then I do think they should find ways to go after the torso. Like the data that they have is just fascinating. I take two examples that like these, you know, these are public, but just, you know, you think of, um. I think of companies like Lyft, right? Like rider data, like that's like so interesting to think about like how you could potentially retarget a Lyft rider while they're sitting at home based on what they did over the last few days, right?
Yeah. Like no-brainer use case for Bori or for, you know, melon hats. Like, I went golfing and then I should see this hat. Like, that's just a, such a no-brainer. Um, and then the other one that um, just we have friends, you know, former SNAP people working on it, um, is that fanatics. And so you think about like your behaviors of like [00:14:00] buying bears memorabilia or bears, things like, it's so obvious that that person to get a different TV experience based on those behaviors.
And so, yeah, I think for retailers it's just, you know, it's, it makes so much sense for them to be in the middle of all this. Um, but it's hard to operationalize and I don't think. I think they kind of have to embrace basically acting like an agency. Like I think it's gonna be hard to get people to buy self-service through these R mens, right.
Um, just 'cause there's so many of them. But, but I do think for a retailer, uh, you know, TV is probably like the first place I'd go as I was looking to extend offsite.
James Avery: Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, I think the data, the data they have, and then I think it also comes back to how do you. You know, it comes back to the measurement side.
Yeah. Like how can you show the effectiveness of it, right. For somebody, like it's a digital first, then maybe it's easier, or somebody, it's like, you know, how do we, how do we see that somebody's going into the store? Yeah. Uh, but I assume like [00:15:00] on universal ads, like we can, you could target it to, uh, you could basically ab test it, right?
You could geo test it and say like, we're gonna only target this in Chicago and we're gonna measure the, you know, week over week sales change in Chicago.
James Borow: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. You gonna see it, uh, and whatever, pretty much any dashboard that you want, you can see it. Uh, and so yeah, there's like, there's no, it, it's, it's, uh, it's at this point now where like.
Again, like TV kind of like really gets to shine because it can be looked at in an apples, apples environment. And so you'll see, and again, nine times outta 10, what we're seeing is TV's incredibly performant. The only time that we've seen, uh. That have come back that, you know, were like, you know, not sort of slam dunk results have been with the creative was really just not great.
Right? Like, that still is
James Avery: had like seven fingers, or it was like that, that video Will Smith eating spaghetti or something,
James Borow: you know? Yeah. I, the creative is still like, you know, again, like the, the best thing about TV is that [00:16:00] is the creative. And so like, you know, I think if you. Uh, you know, if you're not like really rapidly iterating a creative or you fall in love with a creative, but you're seeing it doesn't work and you're not willing to try 50 new ones, like literally like that.
There needs to be that level of volume creation to find the winners, but the creative is gonna end up being like the biggest driver of impact, uh, if you are serious about driving, like real results.
James Avery: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Let's pivot a little bit and talk about like the, the, the subject that we can't get away from on this podcast that we just, everybody wants to talk about.
Uh, I was just at like Cee s and NRF, it's all anybody wants to talk about, um, which is AgTech commerce. So I'm curious there, you know, you talked to a lot of people in the industry. You're, you're all over, you know, where, you know, what do you, what do you see as the future for, for kind of agentic commerce?
James Borow: Yeah, I think it's, it's a little bit. Like, um, it's [00:17:00] like, it, it's almost like back to the future. There's like two things that like I, I've been thinking about. One is, um, it's all consolidating around feeds. And so like you would think of like what's happening right now with Google, like they're just becoming a bigger walled garden, right?
And sort abstracting away a lot of the, uh, touch points that even like a Shopify has, right? And then you look at. Um, obviously what meta's trying to do, you see like the behaviors now, uh, and Chad, GBT, and so like, I think these are just the new social networks and some of them may be built or run by the old social networks, but you know, we now are at this point where like.
I think everyone thought social commerce was gonna come via like TikTok or Instagram. It like still may, but TikTok or Instagram or Google are going to start to look way more like AI assistance and that you're like actually transacting within. So I think it's all just conversion, but Google's gonna be the one where like, you know, you're gonna start to see more YouTube content inside Gemini.
Right. And you start to think of [00:18:00] like, okay, like is Gemini actually like what's the different, at the end of the day, it all collapses. Gemini's gonna gimme what I want to consume. Like is Gemini and YouTube kind of the same thing? Like maybe eventually, and then can I just shop and buy things really easily there?
Yeah. Why not? Um, so I think that's kind of like where it's all going. I don't know if it's a good thing for like. The little guys, you know? It does, yeah. This is like a, a rich get richer, I think a little bit, um, dynamic. Maybe it's a good thing for discovery, right? Like maybe you'll be able to find new products that you couldn't find before.
And, you know, that would be, you know, that was kind of the beauty of Instagram, right? Like, it was just like, it was so tailored to you. You could find like, the perfect hat. Yeah. So maybe that's where, you know, those, you kind of new guys come into play. But yeah, I think it's, it's like, uh, it's awesome, but I don't think it's gonna like.
The, the end result is gonna be the same things we've been doing, just maybe in a different app. Right?
James Avery: Yeah. I mean, I think, [00:19:00] I kind of, you know, I, I agree. Where I think that, you know, everybody is worried that, oh, this is gonna kill, this is gonna kill retail media, it's gonna kill traditional retailers.
They're just gonna become, you know, uh, fulfillment centers. But that's what everybody was worried about with Google shopping. Yeah, right. That's what everybody's worried about with e-commerce, right? Yeah. Like I feel like it's the same, the same, the same concerns all over again. It's the same
James Borow: things. And it may be a good thing for retailers, at least now, there's more places you can distribute things, right?
Like now at least, like Google can fight Amazon in a more like fair sort of direct fight. And so that would probably be a good thing. For retailers, right? Like in general. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think it will end up being a, a net positive. Like it sort of reminds me of, um, you know, for a little bit, obviously, like Meta had such.
Such control over how you spent your time. But then like TikTok came in and we have YouTube now and like you can kind of feel it, [00:20:00] even the time you spend now on chat, GBT is time you're spending there and not on meta. Yeah. Yeah. And so I feel like free this sort of agent commerce move, it was like Amazon was eating the world in terms of commerce, but like now, like all of these apps can become.
You know, commerce enabled really easily. And so like maybe it is actually a good thing for the industry. Yeah. Or it could be disaster. Yeah, that's good.
James Avery: It's a good point. 'cause I do think, like whenever it looks at Amazon's retail media platform, you know, they forget that they have basically become the Google of Commerce.
Yeah. Like people will go to go to Amazon search for something and then drive to the store and buy it. Right. Like, like that. But now that's gonna probably, they're, they're kind of losing that foothold because now I don't go, I don't go search on Amazon. I go ask chat GBT. Like, Hey, I'm looking for a new golf bag and I want to get a really light one.
Like, you know? Totally. I'm gonna ask chat, GBT not go search on Amazon.
James Borow: Yeah. And that's why, that's why it's like meta has to, you know, Instagram needs to become chat GBT before chat. GBT becomes [00:21:00] Instagram, you know, like for that reason. And like, that's why Google has such a great hand because you have YouTube, right?
Like Gemini is gonna be awesome. Like you're gonna be like, I'm bored. I want something like, like I got like 20 minutes to kill. Like I wanna watch golf stuff and it will just show you golf stuff. You'll watch your video and then it'll say, do you wanna buy these four things? And you'll do it? You know?
Yeah,
James Avery: yeah, yeah.
James Borow: So I think it'd be great for consumers. And I think, I also think like, you know, everyone, we talk about it like in terms of like vibe coding, but everyone's like talking about how like. How much, this is all changing behaviors, but like consumers are still gonna consume stuff, right? Like you're addicted to your phone regardless, like of how like good or bad AI is, right?
Like if you're like the, the smartest AI system in your pocket. It's doing all this stuff for you, it just means you probably have more time to consume, right. Like consume other media. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not, you're not gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna go work out. Like that's just not, [00:22:00] that may not be what human nature is right now.
Yeah. Um, so yeah,
James Avery: I think it would be really interesting. Yeah. I think the, I think the same with like, people enjoy shopping. Yeah. Like, I think they, everybody, like a lot of people thinking about the agent side or like, this is, you know. Utilitarian. And I think for like utilitarian purposes, yeah, it's probably gonna get pretty prevalent.
Like, you know, hey, I forgot milk and eggs, like, bring 'em to my house. Yeah, right. Like you're not gonna go look at the ads, you're not gonna see the ads in Instacart or whatever. 'cause you're just, you're just gonna bring milk and eggs to my house. But like buying a new golf bag, like you're not gonna be like, yeah Chad to bt pick one out for me and have it at my house on Tuesday.
James Borow: Yeah.
James Avery: Like, you're gonna go look at colors, you're gonna go look at different things. You're gonna read reviews. 'cause we actually like, we enjoy shopping. Most people do.
James Borow: Yeah, I agree. And I think the, I saw, um, Brian Chesky, like the Airbnb co-founder tweeted something about this like yesterday, but he was like, um, the final form factor of these AI experiences is like so unknown right now, but it's like, not gonna [00:23:00] just be a chat box.
And it's basically 'cause like people like beautiful things and they like
James Avery: Yeah, yeah.
James Borow: Entertainment and like, you know, there's like a reason why like. There's a reason why like human beings started painting things, right? Like, you know, like it could have all just not been So, uh, you think about, like right now, you're like, oh, it's this utilitarian sort of just like text box and then whatever.
But it's like, yeah, a few years from now it's gonna be this like highly immersive thing that Yeah. You know, is gonna be like. Just tailor made probably for you to discover new things and products and ideas. And to your point, like it'd be awesome right now if I could be like, just pull this up in like a feed of every golf bag that you know, would be good for me.
You know, just like, you know, that that is like gonna happen. You know, that's kind of where like, and it's why I go back to like this whole thing of like the Instagram versus chat. Bt like convergence is like whenever that final form factor. Exists. It actually will be a really incredible experience. Like for consumers.
Yeah. Yeah,
James Avery: you're right. We're kind of in like the like [00:24:00] command prompt Yeah. World of of AI right now. Right? Because it is like, it's like here's a bulleted list that you can read descriptions of all these like golf bags and like in the future it's like, Hey, here's a video we put together. That's like showing you each of them.
Like, watch this three minute video, like totally. And then, and then watch these other, this video if you wanna see reviews of 'em. Like, these are like custom built reviews that talk about what you care about, right? Like,
James Borow: yeah. You know, Google, for example, they just announced, um, like the personalized Gemini, where like, it'll look at like your photos and it'll look at like your email and stuff.
Like, it could, like, it could like pull out a picture of like, me holding onto my golf bag and put that new, it's like, do you like this golf bag? This is like, what a, you know, like there's no reason why. That stuff won't happen. So yeah, it's gonna lead to more commerce and like more, more shopping, more commerce.
And then I just, you know, and the, and the AI platforms are incentivized to have more merchants, right? Because the torso is so important for like an [00:25:00] advertiser. Yeah. So I actually think this is like, you know, eventually this will make it where. You know, that sort of bigger SMB has like way more opportunities to scale and be discovered than they did previously.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah. It makes sense. It kind of almost weakens, weakens like the incumbent brands a little bit, right? Yeah. Because it encourages, encourages
James Borow: more discovery. Yeah. And that's where, you know, like back to like selfishly to like TV and like universal ads. That's why, you know. It's, it's like unfair that these amazing sort of unknown brands were sort of like boxed out of this, right?
Yeah. And you know, like did now. So like to get them here allows them to compete. And then there is a halo effect. You, you mentioned this earlier, but like when people see your brand on tv, there is just like this perception still that like, oh wow, they, they've made it, they're like on television. Yeah. Yeah.
And then that actually basically conditions people to go ahead, um, and be more likely to transact when [00:26:00] your ads are shown on like social networks. So like, we actually just put out this study about it. Not only does TV drive like real roas, but that actually makes all your other media perform better.
Yeah, no, it totally
James Avery: makes sense because like if I see, if I see an ad for something that looks interesting on TikTok, the initial thing is I'm, I'm skeptical and I assume that it's like just some piece of crap. Drop trip, drop trip from like China, right? Like you're, like, you're immediately, you're immediately skeptical of this product and you go research it, you go look it up on Reddit or whatever and like, or ask cht BT about it.
Uh, but you see the same thing on TV and you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. There's, there's something here. It could still just be dropship from China, but like, it's, it, it adds a level of credibility that, that, you know, almost like TikTok probably has the opposite. And Instagram probably at this point, Instagram's probably neutral, right?
Like, you probably, like if you see it on Instagram, you're like, you know, probably have neutral feelings from a brand perspective.
James Borow: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's like. You know, so a, like, it's in the data. We like see it all everywhere. And then I feel like the next kind of phase of all this will be [00:27:00] for TV is like when you start to see like local creators or like more personalized creators tied to it.
So like, so like, like basically trusted creators. Like when you see, you know, I don't know, some golf influencer, right? Like actually talking about the product. Do you actually do care? Right? Yeah. But like that sort of, and like that kind of works on Instagram, but like that hasn't really hit tv. At scale yet, but like when you can start to actually marry, like kind of marry all that together, I think you're just gonna see performance continue to just kind of go through the roof.
James Avery: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you could target people that you know as an audience of that show. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, yeah. Yeah. It's
James Borow: like a very, it's like, I obviously biased, but like if you are a growing brand and you're not on tv, you are like kind of fighting with one hand behind your back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and then if you are, the best way you should do it is universal ads.
James Avery: Yeah. Uh, all right, last, last thing we should talk about. You've been, you've been on Twitter, LinkedIn, places like that, talking about. Vibe [00:28:00] coding. What's your, what's your plat first, what's your platform of choice for, for doing this?
James Borow: I'm like, such a, I feel like I'm just like, not, I, I, I spend more time in lovable, which is like lovable.
All right. I feel like, kind of like unserious. I've, like, I use fault code, but it is like, it is a level of. There's a level of complexity and just like, even like just deployments, right? Like I love the fact that like, lovable is all just hosted and you can just do it. Yeah. Um, what about you, you clocked guy,
James Avery: rept
James Borow: Rept.
Oh,
James Avery: rep. I think rep's really similar. So I've used like cursor and stuff 'cause I used to be an engineer, but like, I get in there now and I'm like, I'm like, I just, I, I need this simpler mode. I'm, I'm too outta out of, uh, you know, practice
James Borow: rep and lovable. Are basically the same products. Yeah. For all practical purposes.
Um, quad Code is awesome and you can tell it's better, but it's like cursor where you actually have to like go, like, you're like, I'm like inside the terminal. Like, like, I'm like, what the the hell am I doing? You know? Yeah. Um, and you can tell It is funny though 'cause, [00:29:00] uh, like I'll ask quad questions, like when I was trying to do it just like in the terminal, and it like, it's like, well, again, you have to like, you know.
Press enter and then y like, you know, like all this random stuff and it's like, you know, it's thinking I'm an idiot.
James Avery: Yeah. You know, you're being judged CL code. It's like maybe there's a better tool out
James Borow: here for you, James. Maybe there's another
James Avery: tool that's a better fit for your skillset.
James Borow: Um, but I do love it.
And I think anyone, I really think if you're not, like if you are not actively vibe coding right now. You are really kind of just falling behind in terms of like your understanding of what AI actually is and like has nothing to do with the fact that like, like the, it has nothing to do with the fact that it can write code itself.
It's the fact that like you can do any digital thing you think of right now. You can go do like in the time that we've talked right now, if we wanted to spin up, I know we can, talking about golf. The best golf app, like for [00:30:00] everything. We just do it. You just tell it and it's there. And then I think it also kind of forces you to start to learning a little bit more about like how APIs work.
Like it's so simple to go ahead and like put in the keys. It just like, I think it's like a, such a mental unlock for, for like, and we're obviously technical, but like, you know, I just think anyone should be doing it and you know it. To me it's like, and then you can start to see a little bit like around the corner you're like, oh, it's so interesting.
Like I can vibe code these digital experiences. It's like, so like now, like if I need an engineer, I have one like on staff just a hundred percent of the time just there, right? It's like the design it does is like great, like you say, like make me like a beautiful landing page and logo. It can like obviously do that.
Um, it's obviously a great like sparring partner when it comes to marketing and like those ideas. It's incredible math, right? Like and to like as like a CFO. It's like you're starting to fill the stack. You're like, whoa. Like AI can do. A lot of things here. And then you look at like, I dunno if you played around clogged cowork, um, [00:31:00] but like, I haven't, they just launched it.
It's awesome. Basically it, like, you give it access to your desktop and it can start looking through your files and stuff. So it's like you now have like a COO so you're gonna be like, oh, like, you know, organize my desktop and like help me like figure out my taxes and it can give access to the folder.
It'll help you do it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, um, you just sort of look it know. I'm like fascinated by it. And then like, you know, now it's so constrained to digital things, but like you see all this stuff with like optimists and like Tesla and you're like, well, like when this stuff's inside that thing, right?
Yeah. It's like, you know, and you start to marry it with like 3D printing. It's like we're about to enter into like, we're like very far into the future. Like this is like wild stuff, you know? Yeah. And so, yeah, I think if you're not like. That was a, a very long-winded way of saying like, if you're not like sitting here actively playing this stuff and seeing it, it, like, it's hard for you to understand just like how impactful this all really is.
James Avery: Yeah, no, a hundred [00:32:00] percent. The thing I, I, I'm a big fan of, uh. Chatt Atlas. Oh yeah. I don't think anybody else is, I don't think anybody else is using it. No, I, yeah, it was 'cause Yeah, but it's great. Like, 'cause essentially it's like, and I'm sure like, like this is already gonna be in Chrome any second if it's not already there.
But it just basically having, having the, you know, having the context of the page you're on in immediately in the chat. And so it's just easy to be like. Read this email, like, summarize this email, summarize this document. It can be like the other day, like, my son's like baseball schedule. I was like, can you just put this in the calendar?
And it was like, I need control of your thing. Like, do whatever you want, you know, and, you know, loaded it all in the calendar. It's like stuff like that, that you're like, you know, I didn't even have to copy and paste it and take it to chat, DBT. It's just like getting more and more immersed and like integrated into everything we do.
James Borow: Yeah, it, you know, it was kinda an interesting example of that is I, uh, actually this morning I had my dog like, hurt her leg and, um, she was like, fine. But it was like [00:33:00] we were like freaking out. So I get in my car and I'm holding my dog and because like, literally thought she had broke her leg and yeah, I, I have a Tesla, so I, I was like, I pressed like the rock button and I was like, just take me to the closest, uh, dog vet.
It was like 7:00 AM and it found the one that was open and it literally just took me there. And you're like. This is like, it's, you know, I didn't even like, it was this sort of like instinct. It was like instinct to do it and then like, yeah, like early, you know, an hour ago I was just like, that was an insane thing that like, that actually happens.
But you think about like putting AI into all these things. It's just gonna, it's gonna unlock so much and just change so much about like everything we do.
James Avery: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if, but yeah, lemme figure. How does it, how does the, how does this go back to ads? Like how do we let the, the vets bid the bid on your business?
Yeah. Before they drive you there. But, you know,
James Borow: you, you saw that, you see the Google thing, the, um, direct offers? Uh, yeah. And it's just so funny 'cause I like, I, I like posted this [00:34:00] on X but it was like, it's, we're just going back to commission junction. You know, this is like gonna become an affiliate model for everything and which maybe is a good thing, you know, like maybe that's, maybe that's what like the future of ads look like.
But it is sort of funny that like, uh, it's not gonna be, I don't think the ads experience is gonna be, at least in these apps, I don't think it's going to be like, it's not display. It's not like this form of like, you know, tech space display. Like it's gonna be. Um, I think it would be like, you know, basically affiliate offers.
I think that like, makes a lot of sense, right? And like you can use discounts to go ahead and drive behavior. And then I do think, you know, video advertising in the context of these apps is going to be awesome, right? Yeah. There's like, you know, like it when it can start to generate the perfect ad for you.
Like on the spot, like for exactly who you are, like it's gonna be an amazing experience. Yeah.
James Avery: So that was so, [00:35:00] well something I, speaking of vibe coding, something I did, I vibe coded was I just said, okay, what if, what if we let the LLM write the ad, but we do a similar kind of keyword bid on who gets the, to put that in there.
So I, I basically just coded up like a simple UI that you, you put in your, like chat TBT like question to, right? You say like, where can I register a domain name? Right. That basically makes a call to Keval, says, you know, domain name is the key word. We, we respond and say, GoDaddy's the sponsor, and here's how we want you to, here's the tweak to that prompt.
Right? And so the, we change the prompt to say, instead of, you know, it's like, where do I, you know, where do I go to register domain name, give me a complete honest answer. And then at the end, include an ad for GoDaddy. And it does an amazing job. Yeah. And the ad is, the ad is then tailored to the context window that you're in with chat two bt.
So it's like, you know, it knows that maybe you run a small business and GoDaddy's better for you that way, or maybe you're a, a NASCAR fan and they're gonna mention [00:36:00] that GoDaddy used to sponsor whoever, you know, and like, so it's like, yeah, it actually could write this in there. But I was like, we wanted to be clear.
We didn't wanna just influence the prompt. Right. Because then you're like, you know, yeah. But be very clear of like, hey, you can go to one-on-one, you can go to GoDaddy, you can go to name cheap. And then it's like, you know, add, you know, add marker, and then it's like, yeah, by the way, GoDaddy might be your best bet because of blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah.
James Borow: Yeah. And, and if you're like a high LTV user, they'll like a bid more, or they'll give you your first domain free or something. Like, it's, yeah, yeah. This all gets settled, you know, like it will, it ads are not going anywhere as long as consumption stays. And I think, like we were talking about earlier, consumption's gonna increase.
Like, you look at like in, you know, I'm in la. I see tons of Teslas that I see people they're driving full self-driving. You can just tell people are just like on their phones because they're watching YouTube, right? Like Yeah. Uh, or you see all these Waymo's and you're like, the amount of the amount of new consumption time that is gonna [00:37:00] be created.
Yeah. You know, is going, it's going. There's gonna be new consumption because like. We're gonna have new opportunities like driving, but then also gonna be new consumption because like when you were talking about like your kid's schedule, like that saved you time. Like AI's gonna just save you a bunch of time.
And, and then I think you'll have new consumption too, because people are gonna vibe, code new apps that like, are just totally different experiences. Like there's, there's a guy that I worked with at Snap, um, guy named Josh Siegel. He as a startup, and it's basically, it's like YouTube, but for like vibe coded games.
So like, instead of you like going through like YouTube videos, you're just scrolling through games that like anyone can create. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just like, it's just all gonna be, you know, you know, from the advertising perspective, I think it's like we're about to enter into this like golden age of, you know, ads.
Like we're, we're actually like, we're in the right business, I think, and there'll always be
James Avery: ads. I'm never worried about that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
James Borow: I [00:38:00] think we, yeah, I think we picked the right one. Um, but yeah, it really is gonna be fascinating.
James Avery: That's awesome. Well, James, thank you for coming
James Borow: on. This has been awesome.
Yeah, man, I really appreciate it. Um, if anyone wants to learn more about Universal Ads, hit me up on LinkedIn or go to universal ads.com. And again, congrats everything man that you're doing at Accountable. It's, it's awesome to see.
James Avery: Awesome. Thank you. Bye man. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to Unlocking Retail Media.
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