The VFC in Melbourne: Recap
On Thursday, August 13, at The Walt Disney Company’s Melbourne office, the Video Futures Collective hosted agencies and brands at a session drawing attention to key questions and best practices around planning & investing in streaming advertising.
Interim CEO Toby Dewar and Head of Research Jo Moses gave the market an update on the VFC's work to-date and how the industry can better capitalise on the growth of streaming, followed by an informative and lively panel featuring UM's Adam Russell, PMG's Emma Goodchild, Zenith's Simon Schoen and VFC Head of Measurement Murray Love, moderated by Vevo's Australian GM of Sales and VFC representative Tim O'Connor.
The journey so far
Dewar acknowledged industry associations such as ThinkTV and their exceptional job in driving education to support the TV market, but said a gap had emerged when it came to streaming. Said Dewar, there is no other market anywhere in the world that has brought together the 8 major brands that make up the VFC, and he is proud of the commitment that each brand has shown in driving the market forward.
Highlighting some of the popular content currently trending across VFC platforms, Dewar reminded the room that at the end of the day, streaming advertising exists to connect brands with engaging content. Dewar says that while viewing hours and ad dollars are growing at a fast rate, with this growth comes the responsibility to understand how we can support investment by providing rigorous research and measurement projects to help brands unlock the power of streaming.
Streaming’s momentum isn’t slowing down
The VFC’s Head of Research, Jo Moses, further unpacked the numbers and audience
behaviour behind streaming’s upward trajectory.
VOD investment grew 10% YOY, with 71% of advertisers stating that they have the propensity to spend more on streaming again this year (source: IAB State of the Nation, 2026)
VOD’s share of Total TV investment is set to grow 21% YOY, with predicated VOD allocation of TV spend to reach 66% by 2031 (source: WPP This Year Next Year mid-year forecast, July 2026)
Streaming is now the default TV experience in Australia, with 60% of Aussies over 18 preferring streaming over any other way of watching TV (source: YouGov August 2026 data)
Consumption is near-universal, with 99% of CTV ad-supported streamers having watched TV in the last week (source: YouGov August 2026 data)
75% of Australians 18+ have watched SVOD in the last week, making it the #1 weekly consumed channel in the country (source: Zenith Imagine Consumer Panel, July 2026)
Streaming is the channel most Australians are engaging with, most consistently, every single week. Digging deeper, the data shows why.
“Control” & “Exclusive content” are the top 2 reasons audiences choose streaming (source: YouGov August 2026 data)
Streaming is #1 for active attention in the home, surpassed only by cinema (source: Impact of Streaming on Attention Outcomes, Amplified, 2025)
“Premium” & “Easy viewing experience” rounded out the top 4 reasons audiences choose streaming (source: YouGov August 2026 data)
Moses continued, telling the audience that streaming is delivering outcomes across media, marketing and sales. But the VFC is not just stating that — it's proving it, by working with research partners to demonstrate exactly how streaming drives results across these domains, from reach, frequency and attention, to digital impact and brand health, to sales.
As Moses emphasised, it is the responsibility of the VFC to make sure that this spend is being allocated by agencies and clients as effectively as possible. Growth in investment only matters if it's matched by growth in effectiveness.
Visit our Insights section to read about what’s already been done, and stay tuned for more research to be released in the coming months.
The Missing Pieces
Dewar continued, highlighting the regular consultation the VFC has done with the market which has helped shape the body’s projects to-date.
From TV planning rules that are outdated when applied to streaming, to understanding the role Video plays in delivering better business outcomes, to the need for a unified cross-media measurement solution, the VFC has heard from agencies and brands, big and small, on some of the “missing pieces” of streaming advertising.
Through research, guidance and improved campaign measurement, the VFC is committed to helping advertisers better understand their streaming investment and moving streaming forward.
Dewar highlighted some of the evidence-backed guidance available to the market through the VFC’s research work, available to download from our Insights page.
Prioritise streaming for its power in holding attention. It delivers 3x the active attention of linear TV, and 41% more active attention vs the total media market (excl. cinema) [Impact of Streaming on Attention Outcomes, Amplified, 2025]
Make your media plan work harder by including 3+ streaming platforms, which was shown to drive 56% more ROI [Impact of Streaming on Business Outcomes, Analytic Partners, 2025]
In research across five different brand categories, on average, the optimum allocation of streaming investment within overall video investment was shown to be 40% [Impact of Streaming on Digital Outcomes, Adgile, 2025]. Taking into account WPP’s forecast of streaming reaching 66% of TV budgets by 2031, we expect this guidance to be updated and the optimum levels to increase along these lines.
Closing out the opening section of the presentation, Dewar states the VFC’s ambition for measurement – to establish Australia’s unified cross-media ad measurement ecosystem that delivers transparent audience intelligence across participating video platforms.
The VFC is treating its role in video measurement with the commitment it deserves, with Dewar revealing that the body is currently finalising its plans to bring a globally established measurement solution to the Australian market, with details to be announced soon.
The agency view
After introducing the panellists, moderator Tim O’Connor (Vevo’s General Manager of APAC Sales and VFC representative) opens the discussion by asking the panel how they are seeing the streaming's growth trajectory against a backdrop of an uncertain economic climate filter through to their businesses.
Adam Russell, General Manager, UM Melbourne, attributed most of the ad spend growth seen within UM to be from new entrants into the market, rather than established brands; and is not surprised at all that streaming’s growth is outstripping other channels. Russell put this down to shifting audience preferences – the fact that people are watching more video than ever before, but in a different way. Said Russell, you can no longer buy one spot in a primetime program and reach 90% of Australia – spend now needs to be diversified across many more platforms.
For Russell, a 40% streaming allocation felt on the lower side, with some UM clients approaching 60% already, and foresaw more clients trending towards a 60% allocation to streaming in the not-too-distant future.
Emma Goodchild, Head of Digital, PMG, agreed, saying that the average person has 3.7 streaming subscriptions with more and more people dropping down to ad-supported plans due to cost of living pressures. Agencies have witnessed audiences continuing to grow on streaming and are therefore spending more in the channel.
Simon Schoen, National Head of Strategy & Planning, Zenith, echoed Russell and Goodchild’s experiences, expressing no doubt that streaming will continue its growth as audiences continue to migrate to the channel. Schoen revealed that streaming is now the #2 invested channel at his agency, Zenith.
Questioning where the next wave of media investment growth will come from, whether it be budgets being shifted from traditional channels, incremental budgets or new pools of investment arising out of the opportunities across streaming, social and retail media, O’Connor threw to Russell.
Russell said that there are no new pools of investment and that clients and CMOs are under more pressure than they’ve ever been before. The players that will win the media dollars are those than can demonstrate the efficacy of the offering, by showing the direct links to outcomes and sales. He also called out AI companies such as ChatGPT as the looming disruptors of the market, potentially unseating streaming as the growth channel in the near future.
When asked to elaborate on Zenith’s Imagine Consumer Panel for the room, Schoen said that the panel is one of the largest in-market with over 10,000 respondents tracking media consumption, sentiment, attitudes, behaviour and more on a monthly basis. Schoen said trends can be seen when the report is looked at quarterly, half-yearly and yearly junctures, and the team’s suspicions that streaming had overtaken linear TV in terms of consumption were borne out in the latest report. It is also the first time in the last 4 years that YouTube had overtaken linear TV, and the first time that music streaming had overtaken linear radio.
Schoen and his team found that linear consumption among older audiences such as under 45s and under 50s are increasingly dropping away, prompting fresh discussions within the agency on streaming vs linear weighting, and replacing linear with streaming on some plans altogether.
Speaking to Goodchild, O’Connor mused that streaming is at an interesting intersection in terms of planning and buying where on the one hand, it is TV, but on the other hand, it’s addressable, data-driven, and increasingly bought via digital infrastructure. As Head of Digital at PMG, Goodchild was asked who “owns” streaming within the agency structure.
Goodchild explained that PMG’s approach is often to look at the campaign through the lens of the target audience and objectives to determine where it sits within the team. If a specific audience is required, such as people who are moving house in the next 30 days, it’s likely that the plan would be bought with a DSP and handled by the Performance team who understand what levers can be pulled within digital platforms. On the other side, TV and video are so inherently linked to culture, so campaigns that require cultural nuance may sit with the agency’s TV Trading team who are best placed to extract value from a partnership more meaningfully.
Turning to Murray Love, Head of Measurement for the VFC, O’Connor asked what he can share of the VFC’s work on measurement so far.
Love said that in talking to agencies on behalf of the VFC over the past few years, he's found what they're really after isn't a return to the past, but the same ease of reach those "good old days" offered like getting to 90% of the population, that Russell had spoken of, in a single move. The challenge now is achieving that kind of reach across today's fragmented, siloed media landscape spanning streaming and the broader ad tech ecosystem.
As Love explained, the work the VFC is doing with a global measurement company, yet to be announced, will help agencies better understand their audience reach through its measurement solution. Combining census-level data through direct integrations with participating platforms with a 100,000-strong panel to determine demographics, co-viewing and duplication, advertisers will be able to verify that they are indeed reaching the people they planned to reach.
Love spoke to the advantage the VFC has in bringing this particular measurement company to the Australian market is that 75% of VFC members already have agreements in place, which enables the body to get a solution up and running quickly and providing the benefits to advertisers sooner.
Russell was quick to question Love on the fact that currently, 6 of the 8 VFC members are signed up to the measurement solution, but what about the remaining 2? Will they come on board? And beyond that, Russell said, while the VFC’s measurement solution is a positive step forward, measurement is still fragmented, with a series of solutions in isolation still not fitting the bill for one unified measurement solution.
Goodchild agreed, saying that any movement towards a unified measurement solution is positive, but expressed the need for all platforms to be encompassed to truly resolve agencies’ measurement challenges. Schoen echoed this sentiment, seeing a lot more money ready to be spent in streaming if the measurement solution stacks up.
Love stated that while the VFC members who have been able to tap into their global counterparts have had a head-start on the measurement solution, the VFC’s intention in bringing this measurement capability to the Australian market is that it’s the first step in a process that will ultimately benefit the whole market, with O’Connor adding that the long term ambition is to establish a framework that can be adopted by the broader video landscape. Open conversations with relevant external stakeholders are happening regularly, working towards the VFC’s vision of achieving truly unified video measurement.
When asked what he’s learned from the global insights he’s gained through working with the international streaming brands in the VFC and what that means for measurement locally, Love pointed to markets which spent 5 or 6 years and a lot of money building a bespoke measurement solution that wasn’t necessarily fit for purpose, and the need to take a hybrid approach that encompasses the ad tech available to achieve granularity, as well as a robust panel to determine demographics, co-viewing and deduplication.
Love continued, the VFC has also been able to take on learnings on a more micro level that ensure the solution is fit for purpose and delivering effective measurement for advertisers from day one.
O’Connor closed the panel by asking each of the participants one thing they wish to see the VFC solve in the next 12 months, and the message was clear: unified measurement (Russell), evidence-based guidelines around frequency best practice (Goodchild), and for Schoen, guidance that includes a push on creative formats, innovation, and deeper integration opportunities.
Complacency is not in the VFC's DNA
In expressing why the VFC is not resting on its laurels despite the growth and positive outlook on streaming, Dewar said that the body cannot assume that new competitors won’t disrupt streaming’s trajectory or take for granted that the channel’s growth will continue along projected lines. Therefore the responsibilities that the VFC has taken on to improve measurement, undertake sought-after research projects and stay accountable to advertisers’ investment remain key.
Dewar finished by touching on 3 VFC research projects now in progress.
‘The Frequency System’, in collaboration with Adgile and Omnicom, is designed to establish clear frequency guidance fit for streaming video, taking into account the dynamic system it works within. A playbook with the findings will be available in early 2027.
A partnership with YouGov is underway which allows the VFC to provide participating brands with independent, near real-time measurement of streaming video's contribution to brand health while building an expanding evidence base to strengthen confidence in streaming investment. The VFC is offering a free brand health report for eligible clients – email vfc@videofuturescollective.com.au to find out if you’re one of these.
And finally, to examine how streaming performs against other media channels, a research partnership with Kantar will evaluate channel effectiveness, synergy and incrementality across three major brands in different categories. Aggregated findings will be released to market in early 2027.
What is your missing piece?
Dewar reiterated that the VFC is hungry for more feedback from agencies on what ‘missing pieces’ of streaming the body can help solve for. Collaboration with the market is a key tenet of the VFC’s work; and Dewar invited the room to make contact with the VFC, whether through our website or by speaking to your Sales representative at a VFC member company. Through ongoing collaboration, research and measurement projects, the VFC is committed to forging a sustainable digital video and streaming ecosystem.
