Interactive CTV in Australia is in its ‘cautious’ era

Interactive connected TV advertising in the U.S. has moved well beyond experimentation. Viewers shop from their couches, answer polls mid-show or navigate overlays with their remote control. For advertisers, interactivity is no longer a novelty — it’s a standard feature of premium streaming inventory.

In Australia, the technology is live. The demand is real, but the budgets remain cautious.

Local marketers are intrigued but not fully convinced. According to John Cucka, head of analytics at Kantar Australia, confidence is proving to be the last barrier to scale.

“From a brand and agency perspective, readiness is high,” Cucka told The Current. “The appetite is clearly there — marketers know this is where audiences are shifting, and agencies are pushing for richer, more distinctive formats that go beyond passive viewing.”

The data supports the shift. Kantar’s Media Reactions data shows that 54% of marketers plan to increase investment in TV streaming in 2026, putting CTV among the fastest‑growing channels globally.

But in Australia, conviction lags behind momentum: “Many brands remain in test‑and‑learn mode because measurement frameworks for interactivity are still maturing,” Cucka said. “Demand is growing, but investment is cautious until ROI becomes clearer.”

The case for click metrics

As U.S.-based interactive ads platform BrightLine expands in Australia, President Rob Aksman believes the local trajectory will mirror the U.S., where industry curiosity and experimentation were followed by rapid scale.

Brightline recently announced an expanded global partnership with Disney, bringing its full suite of interactive CTV ad formats to Disney+, alongside Hulu inventory and live sports and events on Fubo TV.

Australia became BrightLine’s first major market outside the U.S. when it launched with Seven West Media in 2021. It later partnered with Nine, which has been ramping up its interactive capabilities. A third partnership in the local market is understood to be in the works. the works.

Aksman said one of the biggest catalysts for repeat adoption globally has been the emergence of interaction data as a meaningful CTV performance signal.

“In CTV, everyone’s video completion rate is 99% because you can’t skip commercials,” he said. “Agencies were asking, what else can we optimize on?”

Remote-control clicks, with viewers actively engaging with on-screen prompts, provide that next layer.

“[Advertisers] are now looking at those click metrics,” Aksman said. “Those interaction rates are giving them real-time feedback on how their campaign is performing, and that’s been a driver globally for why we see further adoption and repeat.”

“In a sense, it’s a gauge of attention. If more people are clicking, there’s no better signal that someone’s actually looking at the screen than someone responding on it.”

What’s needed for Australia to ‘lean in’

Despite strong foundations, Cucka says four barriers still temper growth in Australia: measurement uncertainty, fragmented inventory and format standards, creative adaptation challenges and a lingering “lean-back” perception of TV.

“What’s lagging is the infrastructure to measure and verify success. Fragmentation and inconsistent standards slow scale far more than marketer appetite,” he said.

For scale to accelerate, he says the market needs consistent measurement and verification, cross-publisher standardization and repeatable evidence of brand impact.

“CTV isn’t just another screen. It blends the emotional power of TV with the precision of digital — but only if we treat it as its own creative canvas,” he added.

Custom creative is central to an impactful campaign.

“The most effective interactive CTV ads are simple, useful and unmistakably branded from the first moment. If a TV commercial is simply lifted into CTV, performance becomes a coin flip. Customization is what unlocks effectiveness,” he said.

For publishers, Aksman highlights the importance of leveraging network intellectual property to maximize the effectiveness of interactive ad campaigns. He points to Warner Bros. Discovery’s interactive trivia ads tied to the Friends 30th anniversary, which delivered rates ten times higher than industry benchmarks.“[Premium content] is what makes TV special. It’s what separates it from the morass of content in the web world and UGC. … Tie it to the interactive components — the trivia, the polls and the engagement you’re trying to generate — and that unlocks viewer enjoyment and makes the ad more effective. That’s the win-win,” he said.

“Tying in the IP of network content with these types of formats is critical and should be done as quickly as a network can.”