In 2025, Paramount Australia, in partnership with FreeWheel and egta, hosted a webinar outlining a forward-looking view of the evolving advertising market. One key topic explored the industry’s shift to pull-based discovery, experience-driven engagement, and frictionless content-commerce integration. Paramount Australia’s Contextual Advertising Suite directly responds to these trends, reinforcing the company’s leadership in premium CTV innovation through real-time, contextually immersive ad experiences, that meet audiences in the moment.
In November 2025, Paramount Australia finalised its suite of contextual advertising solutions with ‘Own the Moment’ and ‘Contextual Ads’ launched in Network 10’s Big Brother Australia. Designed to redefine how advertisers connect with audiences across premium streaming environments, the suite is powered by KERV.ai’s scene-level intelligence and FreeWheel’s ad-serving technology, enabling precise, in-moment relevance.
- Own the Moment is a format that allows advertisers to own relevant content and cultural moments of choice, delivered in the first-ad-in-break, accompanied by contextually relevant brand proof points or product recommendations.
- Contextual Ads delivers highly relevant, context-driven TVC placements that leverage content analysis to ensure brand-content alignment and ad pod positioning.
Own the Moment and Contextual Ads joined Paramount’s Pause to Shop, launched in MasterChef Australia in May 2025, which unlocks an exclusive opportunity for advertisers to connect with viewers in-show during key moments and move them from discovery to conversion instantaneously.
Campaign Overview
Paramount Australia’s inaugural campaign showcased the power of its Contextual Advertising Suite through a partnership with PHD Australia, P!ckers by McCain and Big Brother Australia. As a new brand in the Australian market, P!ckers by McCain’s ambition was to become the number one frozen shareable snack by tapping into the credibility, scale and obsession of reality TV.
With a focus on digital innovation, P!ckers by McCain aimed to inject fun into everyday situations, to ultimately drive discovery and purchase of the product range. The partnership allowed P!ckers by McCain’s fun and mischievous brand identity to show up in the most relevant moments in Network 10’s Big Brother house, delivering seamless brand integration within the show’s unmissable cultural pulse.
Activation and Execution
By aligning with in-show moments, the Contextual Advertising Suite connected with viewers both in-content and during ad breaks. Pause to Shop encouraged viewers to engage with P!ckers by McCain at the same time as the products appeared on screen, surfacing an interactive experience where they could explore and purchase via their CTV remote control. This was complemented in the first-ad-in-break by the newest solutions, Own the Moment and Contextual Ads.
Own the Moment created a branded experience that housed the P!ckers by McCain TVC within a Big Brother-branded skin, featuring a dynamic product carousel and QR code to shop the range. Complementing this were Contextual Ad TVC placements triggered when key relevant moments occurred in-show, maximising impact.
Contextual Ads, delivered as standalone TVC placements, used the same technology to ensure brand-content alignment, positioning the P!ckers by McCain TVC within the most relevant ad pod moments.
Results and Impact
Paramount Australia’s Contextual Ad Suite solutions introduced a new way of capturing audience attention without disrupting the viewing experience; enhancing, rather than interrupting viewer experiences. The approach delivered strong engagement and uncovered new opportunities for deeper brand-audience interaction, reinforcing the suite’s ability to drive measurable outcomes with the viewer experience remaining at its core. Across the sponsorship, Pause to Shop delivered a pause rate 6x higher than benchmarks, while Own the Moment achieved scan rates 3x higher, demonstrating the power of contextual solutions to drive meaningful outcomes.
Measurement and Future Innovation
To further anchor the Contextual Advertising Suite in measurable effectiveness, Paramount Australia has recently partnered with Adelaide, the global leader in attention measurement, to put attention at the center of streaming performance. By applying Adelaide’s industry-leading AU attention score across Paramount’s premium CTV advertising solutions, such as the Contextual Advertising Suite, advertisers gain outcome-driven insight into how high-quality, contextually relevant experiences translate into real attention and impact.
The launch of the completed Contextual Advertising Suite marks a milestone in Paramount’s ongoing leadership in premium CTV advertising innovation. Paramount’s continued investment in technology and strategic partnerships ensures it remains at the forefront of market-leading advertising solutions, now further strengthened by Paramount Connect.
As Paramount Connect evolves, contextual advertising will become a powerful new layer within its ecosystem, working alongside advanced data and measurement capabilities. With contextual intelligence, data-driven targeting and unified measurement all working together through Paramount Connect, advertisers will be able to reach, engage and convert audiences across all Paramount platforms, maximising the value of their investment and unlocking new opportunities for premium in-the-moment brand impact.
Partner Quotes
McCain’s P!ckers brand is all about fun, playful moments that bring people together over delicious hot snacks, which makes Big Brother the perfect environment for connection. Through Paramount’s Contextual Ads, P!ckers by McCain can show up in the exact right moments of the show, matching the tone, humour, and spontaneity that the brand is known for. It’s a clever and natural fit that enhances both the content and the viewer experience. At PHD, our philosophy of Intelligence Connected is about combining media, data, and creativity to unlock smarter, more contextual opportunities for brands, and this partnership is a great example of that in action.
Our partnership with Paramount Australia exemplifies how AI, premium content, and creativity can come together to redefine the viewer experience on Connected TV. By harnessing KERV’s proprietary content analysis and metadata signals, we’re unlocking a new medium of content-based engagement on the largest screen in the home, where key scenes within Paramount Australia’s premium content can become instantly immersive and shoppable. Our research shows that 49% of viewers would shop a scene if products were relevant to the content, proving that contextualized commerce and relevance, delivered in an unintrusive manner, doesn’t just enhance storytelling – it drives action.