User-generated content is short, phone-shot video made by real people talking about a product, commissioned by the brand and used in ads, on product pages and in email. Done well, it is the cheapest way to feed paid social with fresh angles. Done badly, it is a folder of nice videos nobody runs. Here is what separates the two, whether you work with a UGC agency in Melbourne, anywhere else in Australia, or source creators yourself.
UGC and influencer marketing are different purchases
With UGC you are buying content. The creator's audience is irrelevant, because the video runs on your ad account, to your targeting, under your budget. With influencer marketing you are buying reach: the creator posts to their own followers. Mixing them up is the most common way brands overpay, paying for a follower count when all they needed was a well-made video.
What a good UGC brief contains
One product and one objection to answer. Three or four opening hook options, because the first line decides whether anyone watches the rest. What the creator must say, and what they must not. The format: talking head, demo, unboxing, problem and solution, or comparison. Length, aspect ratio and whether you need raw clips as well as the edit. And the usage rights, in writing, before anyone films. A brief that says "show the product and say you love it" produces exactly that, and it rarely sells.
Usage rights, in plain words
Organic usage lets you post the video on your own channels. Paid usage lets you run it as an ad, and it is the part that matters for performance. Whitelisting or Spark Ads lets you run the ad from the creator's own handle. Each right has a term, commonly three, six or twelve months, and perpetual rights cost more. Agree all of it upfront. The worst time to discover a licence has expired is when that video is your best-performing ad.
Rules Australian brands need to follow
Paid content has to be identifiable as advertising. When a creator posts a paid video to their own audience, it needs clear disclosure, and the ACCC and Ad Standards both take a dim view of undisclosed endorsements. Anything with a health claim, including many supplements and skincare products, falls under the TGA's advertising rules, which restrict what a creator can say and how testimonials can be used. We check scripts for those categories before filming, not after the ad is rejected.
Australian creators for Australian buyers
For brands selling to Australians, and Melbourne brands in particular, we cast Australian creators first. A local accent, a recognisable kitchen or street and Australian prices on screen all read as more believable to a local buyer. Our network also covers the US and EU for brands selling overseas, and for testing whether an angle travels.
Where UGC earns its money
Mostly in paid social: Meta ads and TikTok ads both reward a steady supply of new creative. The same videos also lift product pages, where a short demo answers questions a photo cannot, and email, where a customer's face beats another product grid. We plan each batch knowing where every video will run, so nothing is filmed without a job to do.
Simple test: if you cannot name the objection a UGC video is meant to answer, it is content, not creative, and it will perform like content.
