Meet Leo Garcia: Bringing a global media perspective to Comcast AdFusion

Comcast Technology Solutions is excited to welcome Leo Garcia to the Comcast AdFusion team. Leo brings more than 20 years of experience across media sales, advertising technology, broadcast, and global brand relationships, with a career that has taken him from RCTV, the biggest broadcast TV station in Venezuela, to Comcast Spotlight (now Comcast Advertising) in South Florida, Bloomberg TV in Latin America, to HBO, Extreme Reach, and now CTS. 

We recently sat down with Leo to talk about the evolution of ad delivery, what drew him to AdFusion, the opportunity he sees in the Hispanic and multicultural market, and why the most powerful technology in the world still needs a human behind it to see the bigger picture. 

Leo, we’re glad you’re joining us at CTS. How did your career lead you here? 

I’ve been working in the media space for over 20 years, mainly on the media sales side. I started my career in a broadcast TV station in Venezuela, where I spent ten years before I decided to move to America, and then I started working for Comcast Spotlight. That was my first home here in the United States, working in the local market in South Florida for a couple of years, learning how to do ad sales in English, learning how to be adjusted to a new market. 

Then I moved to represent Bloomberg TV through a company based in Miami. I spent a couple of years selling for them in Latin America. After that, I was hired by HBO to develop one of the most rewarding projects that I ever had the opportunity to lead, which was to create the ad revenue source for Cinemax in Latin America. 

Cinemax is a premium channel in the United States, but in Latin America, we made the decision to take that channel to the basic package and make it ad-supported. I was responsible for building the entire ecosystem across 18 different countries. The pricing, the partnerships, agency relationships, brand deals, all of it. And when I say 18 different countries, I really mean 18 different cultures, currencies, different laws, different ways of doing business, different languages. People think that Spanish is one language, but it’s completely different in Mexico City than it is in Bogotá. 

Having the opportunity to work with many different people and cultures, and to be successful in this opportunity to deliver some of the most premium content in the world, was a really powerful experience in my career. 

What made Comcast AdFusion the right next step? 

At some point in my career, I identified how important technology was in the media industry. Technology changes everything. I’m coming from the days where you had to hand a broadcast tape to your TV station, and nowadays everything is done with just a click. So I decided that I really wanted to be more knowledgeable about technology and what happens behind the scenes. 

Extreme Reach brought me the opportunity to be behind the media, not selling ad spots, but understanding how to optimize and be more efficient and how to create savings for brands and agencies, while you deliver to thousands of different destinations. That experience completely changed how I see the industry. 

And now, I am back at Comcast. I feel like this is something very important in my career. The opportunity that we have with all the integrations that AdFusion has in the market, the respect and size of the corporation, the people that work at Comcast Technology Solutions. It’s a place where I know I’m going to learn a lot. 

In my experience working with global brands, they need to be connected, integrated, working in partnership with companies like Comcast. It’s key in order to be successful in our industry. There is no possibility for a brand who is in the advertising space not to have a reliable partner to really navigate the complex ecosystem of ad delivery. 

Comcast is made to do that. When I see the opportunity to join a company that is so robust, that is so well placed in the market, offering clients value, efficiency, scalability, transparency, that is something that I am proud to represent. 

How do you see AdFusion positioned as technology keeps changing? 

We are a technology company, right? And that's probably one of the most exciting parts of this role for me. When I talk to our engineers, the people who bring this technology to life, not only for advertisers but for sports companies and major league teams, that's exciting. 

One thing I've enjoyed since joining CTS is seeing people at very different stages of their careers working together. I see people in their 20s and 30s who have grown up with this technology, but I also see people who remember how different the industry looked not that long ago. For me, that's the perfect combination. The younger generation has this fearlessness and excitement to push things forward, and those with more experience bring patience and the knowledge that sometimes good things take time.

 That's one of the things that stands out to me about CTS. We have great technology, and we have people who understand the business, and understand our clients. In advertising, relationships are the foundation for everything. The technology will keep changing, but the human relationships must still be earned and maintained. 

How do you see newer formats like social media and influencer content changing the advertising landscape? 

For years, people have been talking about the changes in linear TV. And to be honest with you, in my opinion, the only change has been that we have millions of different destinations now. But the content, the strategy, is still the same. We have audiences everywhere. And what brands want is to be visible wherever their audience is. 

I don't see social media and digital as a transformation away from broadcast. I see both living together, both having different strategies, different goals, and different moments where the audience is there. Sports and news are still bringing people to live TV, to broadcast. When I see the investments of big brands in the United States and compare broadcast with digital, many of them are still spending, I would say, 60% of their budget in traditional broadcast television. 

At the same time, the creativity behind advertising is opening new doors. I remember sitting at a World Cup match and seeing someone in the stands and asking my kids, "Who's that guy?" They said, "Come on, he's an influencer. He has 10 million followers." I had no idea who he was, but for my kids, he was a superstar. 

So, everything is transforming in that sense. But I don't see that changing the importance of the broadcast business or the importance of live TV. The beauty of our industry is that audiences are everywhere, and we need to be ready to deliver to every single one of them. 

What should brands understand about the Hispanic and multicultural market? 

Just to give you some numbers, the Hispanic market in the U.S. represents about $31 billion in ad spend. That’s a lot of money. But it’s only 4% of all U.S. ad spending. And there are more than 65 million Hispanics in the U.S. – almost 20% of the population. So there is actually a big gap there, and that’s a big opportunity for advertisers. And every single year, the Hispanic population has more spending power and reach. 

The Hispanic market is growing and the brands and the agencies know that. They know the importance of that segment. And I’m not talking only about Hispanic, we can widen that to multicultural. There are other cultures that are also growing in the United States, and they’re important, and we need to take those into consideration as well. 

But for the Hispanic market, brands are not just designating budget, they are building full creative campaigns for this market. The culture is extremely important. The family is extremely important. The food is extremely important. And when you talk about Hispanic, it depends if you are from Mexico or from Colombia or from Argentina or from Venezuela. We are very similar, but we are also very different. The brands need to talk to every one of them. 

It’s all an opportunity for us to grow and it’s a market that we need to serve. These agencies and these brands are looking for efficiencies, technologies, transparencies, and savings. That’s exactly what we can provide to them. So definitely a big opportunity for us to partner with them. 

Where do personalization and service fit into that opportunity? 

It’s crazy. I mean, sometimes I’m in front of my TV and I feel like my TV is talking to me, you know, because they know what we want, they know what we like, they know what we want to see. The personalization of the message, the targeting of the message, is something that is extremely valuable. And that's especially true when you are talking to multicultural audiences. 

Brands are looking to handle their resources as best as possible, and they need to use technology to do that. I feel like every single technology company is trying to do that in a more granular way. The more efficiently you can personalize and target a message, the more efficiently brands and agencies can invest their resources. They need to be more efficient every single day in their message. 

From the technology perspective, the integrations that we have are unique. I can’t wait to explain to my clients how easy their life is going to be after using AdFusion instead of using other ad platforms. Honestly, what our product team has done is incredible. And it’s exactly what the market needs to make their life easier, safer, and more transparent. 

But at the same time, I don’t feel that it’s only about the technology. It’s also about the service. The service that we provide is what really keeps our clients with us. And that’s a big difference. 

At the end of the day, when I talk about service, it’s the people behind the company. It’s the people who are ready to pick up the phone and find a solution for you. That’s what we have. And that’s what makes us different. So yes, we have the best technology. Yes, we have the best integrations. Yes, we will make their life easier. But for me, the core here, the beautiful thing here, is the combination between that technology and the human resources that we have and the service that we provide. 

Before we wrap up, tell us a little bit about your life outside CTS.  

My wife and I have two kids. My wife is in the media business as well. She's been my friendly competitor for years. Our dinners are always spent talking about ad spending, technology trends, and everything happening in the industry. 

My kids, the older one is going to be a sophomore in high school. He used to play baseball, but now he's now doing boxing, swimming, he’s always at the gym. Now my younger son is a baseball player. And I say that very proudly because I used to play baseball in Venezuela. When you are born, they give you a baseball. And he’s a baseball addict. I’m a baseball addict. We love it. We travel with him to different states to play. It’s a wonderful way to see your kids learning, having responsibilities, having teamwork, learning how to fail, and how to navigate in that process. 

If you had to describe Comcast AdFusion in one sentence, what would you say? 

I would start by saying “Comcast,” because for me, that is extremely important. We are not going anywhere. We’re going to be here for years, and that matters when you’re talking to a client. Many of our clients already have relationships with Comcast through different divisions, so it’s a warm conversation. It’s not a new conversation. 

My elevator pitch would be: We are Comcast’s ad delivery platform, leading the market by connecting the media buy data, the traffic, and the ad delivery to make your media ecosystem more efficient, safer, and more transparent. And we do it with the full weight of Comcast behind us. That's not something anyone else can say.