Video Futures Collective has announced the addition of Amazon to its membership and the launch of two new industry research projects to explore the impact of premium digital video advertising at the Foxtel Upfront 2025.
Members of the media industry thinktank now include Amazon Advertising, Disney Advertising, Foxtel Media, Samsung Ads, and SBS on Demand, Vevo and YouTube.
Toby Dewar, director of customer engagement at Foxtel Media and a member of the VFC steering committee, said at Foxtel Media’s 2025 Upfronts: “The Video Futures Collective was created when we realised there was a gap in representation for premium video businesses like ours. We are delighted to welcome Amazon onboard as we level-up just 8 months after launching in April this year.
“The addition of Amazon means that the group counts another of Australia’s most popular streaming services amongst its members. We’re also excited to unveil two new projects supported by our members, with the goal of supporting the entire industry as it evolves to take advantage of the premium video revolution,” he said.
Toby Dewar
BeatGrid, MAGNA Global and Wesfarmers
In partnership with BeatGrid, MAGNA Global and Wesfarmers (whose brands include Kmart, Officeworks, OnePass, Target), this research project will investigate the effectiveness of advertising in the premium video market across media, marketing, and business outcomes.
Using BeatGrid’s proprietary Audio Content Recognition (ACR) technology and passive metering panel, this project will measure the impact of video advertising on key business and marketing objectives, starting with Wesfarmers in the retail category. It will evaluate the effectiveness of cross-screen advertising by accurately measuring reach, frequency, incrementality and brand lift across a mix of VFC member platforms. It will also assess the impact of advertising on key business metrics such as in-store traffic.
“Understanding the effectiveness of video advertising in today’s fragmented media environment is a challenge for all brands,” Lucy Formosa Morgan, national managing director, MAGNA said.
“As an industry, we need to work together to best understand how we can provide value to our organisations from optimising the media mix, and to prove how marketing is playing a key role in adding business value. We look forward to collaborating with the VFC on this important research project to help the industry move forward.”
Amplified Intelligence and Omnicom Media Group
The VFC is engaging Amplified Intelligence, in partnership with OMG, to undertake the largest ever Australian study into attention and context amplification for video streaming. The study will explore high attention, low clutter environments to establish the value and impact of premium content. It will look at three areas of measurement: attention metrics (active, passive & non-attention); attention drivers (device, channel, program, daypart and ad length); and attention amplifiers (ad context and demographics).
The project will explore the power of context in television to better understand the link between people’s engagement with video content and how that effects the advertising served alongside that content. It will also help to build the foundation for common industry metrics around attention.
Dr Karen Nelson-Field, founder and CEO of Amplified Intelligence said: “We know that attention is the gateway for an advertiser to achieve an outcome from their media investment. This project will be the most extensive research undertaken in Australia to establish how the engagement from must-watch content translates to attention in ad experiences. It will review the significant value content plays in this equation – and evaluate the difference that attention makes to brands.”
Karen Nelson-Field
Kristiaan Kroon, chief investment officer of OMG Australia, said: “The white noise created by the oversupply of advertising in Australia is having an ongoing impact on effectiveness for all brands. Attention signals are key in understanding this and optimising media to drive improved outcomes for our clients.
“Globally and locally OMG is at the forefront of the impact attention has on media selection and we are proud to be a partner in this research study, which aims to deliver insights that will help the entire industry make video advertising more effective and impactful,” he added.
The results from the two research projects are expected in the first quarter of 2025.
Toby Dewar added: “At the start of this year, we asked brands and agencies what mattered most for them in the video marketplace, and what an organisation like the VFC could do to move the industry forward. The feedback was clear and consistent: brands know there is an opportunity to invest more in video, but need the proof, tools and support to get there. These projects exist to help to provide the support the industry needs to take advantage of the future of video.”
Kristiaan Kroon
Foxtel Media announces total audience measurement solution for enhanced data transparency
Foxtel Media will launch a new total audience measurement solution to better capture and report the viewing habits of all of the Foxtel Group’s 4.8 million linear and streaming subscribers.
Brands and agency partners will be able to trade on the transparent, auditable combined linear and streaming measurement solution by the end of the year.
Foxtel Media announced its partnership with Kantar Media in 2023, with its return path data (RPD) service producing an accurate, tradable solution in 12 short months.
In that time, the audience measurement service has ingested, processed and analysed 24 months of linear data collected through more than one million Foxtel set-top boxes, establishing a strong base for audience analysis.
Foxtel Media has been sharing this analysed data with sports partnership clients to track the weekly delivery of campaigns since February and began integrating linear viewing data into ad infrastructure platform Mediaocean in October. The solution is already proving vital to audience analysis with OzTAM reporting 49% of half-hour slots with zero ratings across Foxtel programming in August 2024, compared to 2% with the new measurement solution.
Now viewing data dating from January 2023 onwards for the Foxtel Group’s flagship streaming services including Kayo Sports, BINGE, Foxtel Go and Foxtel Now, has been processed by Kantar Media. The data now sits alongside set top box data and means Foxtel Media customers have a complete view of their audiences in one location, enabling them to easily understand how viewers are engaging with content across services and devices.
CEO Mark Frain said at Foxtel Media’s Upfront that he understood that disruption could be messy, but ultimately necessary to ensure that brands and agencies have complete confidence in Foxtel’s audience numbers.
“Our goal in building a total audience measurement solution was simple: to give our clients the tools to find their audiences, access accurate data, and ensure their media investments deliver real returns. By having everything in one place, brands and agencies can seamlessly bring in research partners and focus on what truly matters – maximizing ROI.
Frain added: “Foxtel Media is committed to providing open, reliable data, so you can make the best decisions for your campaigns. We’re incredibly proud to launch this total audience measurement solution and we look forward to continuing our incredible momentum into 2025.”
Mark Frain