Time Warner Cable is launching a marketing campaign aimed at former subscribers.  The company says it will spend at least $50 million on broadcast, print, online and direct mail ads for the campaign, which it is calling “The Better Guarantee.”

The ads admit the cable service did not always live up to expectations in the past, it has become better.

“We, as a company, are fundamentally different and better than we were a few years ago when these upstart competitors started coming in,” said Jeffrey A. Hirsch, the chief marketing officer for residential service.

The upstarts, he was referring to are Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse, that have gained subscribers at the expense of cable providers.

The new ads point to specific improvements the company has made: smartphone apps, on-demand TV options and narrower windows of time for home service calls. Gone are the dreaded four-hour windows, the company says; two-hour windows are now the norm and one-hour windows are being put in place.

The ads promote a 30-day money-back guarantee. “If the consumer doesn’t see that we’ve improved our service, we’ll send them their money back,” Gregg Fujimoto, a senior vice president for the company told the NY Times.

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