Sewing Down South is a Southern-rooted lifestyle and home décor brand co-founded by Craig Conover of Bravo’s Southern Charm. They built a loyal following through social – the kind of community most brands spend years trying to build. But loyal fans can only take you so far and Sewing Down South was looking for a way to reach new customers at scale.

The Challenge:

For Sewing Down South, historically, TV advertising felt out of reach and reserved for bigger brands with bigger budgets. The complexity of TV buying, the price tag and the lack of performance measurement tools made TV feel like a channel for brands with massive, dedicated media teams, something Sewing Down South and most small businesses don’t have.

“I’ve been on television for over a decade and developed a really great following, but even then, Sewing Down South is still a small business, and I didn’t think small business and TV advertising went hand-in-hand until we were introduced to Universal Ads.” Craig Conover, Co-Founder Sewing Down South

Sewing Down South launched their very first TV campaign with Universal Ads leveraging UA’s self-serve Ads Manager – timed to one of the most competitive shopping windows of the year: the holidays.  The draw for Sewing Down South: they could get on TV during the holidays themselves. No agency. No media buyer. No markup fees.

The campaign targeting and set up mimicked their social buys: leverage zip code, demographic and viewership behavior targeting but delivered across premium TV content instead of a feed.  They tested 7 different creative versions, varying durations, visuals, and end cards, and monitored performance in realtime.  The team was able to optimize in real-time and found their best performing creative was an asset taken from social with a text overlay on top.

The Results:  

TV didn’t just reach new audiences for Sewing Down South –it made every other dollar they were already spending perform better.

“The large spread awareness made our digital and social ads more efficient and work harder for us which in the end returned more revenue to Sewing Down South.”  - Jerry Casselano, Co-FounderSewing Down South

“Universal Ads showed me that you can advertise nationally on television - even during theholidays - as a small business. And for me that meant the world.” - Craig Conover, Co-Founder Sewing Down South