Samsung, Nine and Unilever back vertical microdramas

What the format actually is

A microdrama is a serialised, mobile-first film built for vertical viewing on social platforms. Each episode runs one to three minutes, lands daily on Instagram Reels or TikTok, and ends on a hook designed to pull viewers back the next day. A branded playlist or a longer cut on a streaming or broadcast video-on-demand (BVOD) service sits behind the daily drops, turning a single ad placement into a recurring presence.

The format originated in China, where audiences paid per episode, and has since attracted roughly 90 million regular viewers in North America. Australian adoption has now accelerated, with a broadcaster, a device maker, a fast-moving consumer goods brand and a platform all committing to the format inside the same six-month window.

Who is running what

Samsung Electronics Australia launched a three-part vertical microdrama called The Elephant in the Room in March 2026, shot entirely on Galaxy S26 devices and distributed across social, BVOD, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), out-of-home and Samsung TV Plus.^[3] The series showed device features including 100x zoom, Privacy Display and Nightography. A physical takeover of Sydney's Central Walk ran alongside it from 2 March to 23 May 2026, reaching a reported 4.4 million monthly visitors to that station.^[3]

Nine Network's micro-reality series FLEX, produced by Ronde Media, began dropping daily one-to-two-minute vertical episodes on Instagram and TikTok from 24 April 2026, with 22-to-25-minute weekly full episodes on 9Now.^[4] Nine committing production resources to daily vertical drops is a different proposition from a brand running a standalone campaign; it brings scheduling discipline and an existing audience relationship to a format that has previously relied on algorithm discovery.

Unilever's Vaseline Body Oil brand ran a five-episode vertical series called The Afterglow ahead of the Australian summer. Yin-Hong Yeo, Marketing Manager at Unilever ANZ, said: "We created the new Vaseline Body Oil range to be the 'glow ritual' of Australian summer."^[6] The series reported view-through rates more than twice the industry benchmark across its five episodes, a figure drawn from vendor-supplied data.^[5]

TikTok and agency Amplify formalised their Creator Content Series initiative in September 2026, putting a commercial structure around what had previously been ad-hoc brand experiments.^[2] Named brand series include The TikTok Road Trip for Kia, Gatorade Games and Love Songs, made for Tinder. Amy Bradshaw, General Manager for Global Business Solutions at TikTok Australia and New Zealand, said: "TikTok has always been a place where new formats of storytelling emerge and audiences discover what they want to watch next. We're now seeing that evolve into short-form, episodic storytelling, where creators can build worlds, characters and narratives that audiences want to come back to again and again."^[2]

The numbers on the board, and why every figure here is vendor-supplied

The Love Songs series for Tinder accumulated more than 20 million views, 2.8 million likes and 140,000 followers on TikTok, per figures provided by TikTok itself.^[1] Samsung's Central Station takeover claimed 4.4 million monthly visitors. Vaseline claimed view-through rates more than double the benchmark. Every figure carries the same provenance: the company or platform that ran the campaign.

No independent measurement body has established a standard for microdrama completion, reach or audience composition. That gap matters because the format's value proposition rests on completion rates, the share of viewers who watch an episode all the way through, rather than the gross impressions a standard cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) buy would count. A buyer pricing this format on CPM without requesting completion data is measuring the wrong thing.

Media buyers committing budget to the format should request completion rates, audience demographics and placement detail from vendors before signing. TikTok and Amplify's September 2026 formalisation of the Creator Content Series gives that conversation a named commercial vehicle for the first time.^[2]