Less than 3% of users recall digital ads: Report

Indians spend on average 2.17 hours a day just consuming videos on their mobile phones, yet brand recall for digital advertising is surprisingly low, a new report from think tank RK Swamy Centre for Study of Indian Markets (CSIM) has found.

The study, which surveyed 3,000 respondents across 10 key Indian markets and was conducted by Hansa Research, found that on average, respondents could remember only 1.5 brands. And of the 600+ brands recalled in total, only 11 of them were recalled by 3% or more of the respondents.

S Narasimhan, executive vice-president (EVP) and chief digital officer, R K SWAMY said, “Many respondents had difficulty in remembering and accurately identifying brands. Very few were able to recall specific details of the creative content itself. In the light of major expenditure in Digital Video platforms, this was a disappointment.”

Advertisers are pouring thousands of crores of rupees in advertising on digital video platforms and channels. Some estimates peg digital ad spends as between Rs 12,000 cr to Rs 22,000 cr.

What stood out from the clutter

The empirical study found that respondents struggled to recall specific brand names, often referring to ads by generic terms like ‘mobile ad’ / ‘clothes ad,’ highlighting the difficulty in remembering and accurately identifying the brands.

The most frequently recalled brands are associated with online shopping, online food ordering/delivery, groceries and coffee. The top 11 brands recalled by at least 3% of respondents were Zepto, Zomato, Meesho, Nescafe, Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, Blinkit, Country Delight, Rummy Circle and Dream 11.

What was interesting, however, is that of the 3% that did remember the brand, a significant proportion (between 45 – 85% depending on the brand) indicated that they would be willing to purchase from that brand / that product.

YouTube reigns in viewing time and recall

The report also looked at which platforms had the highest recall. The lion’s share of ads were viewed on YouTube, followed by Meta. YouTube had the highest number of brands recalled (1.52), followed by Facebook (1.50) and Instagram (1.49).

Hansa Research surmised that this was because a greater percentage of respondents spent more time viewing videos on YouTube than other platforms.

57% of respondents felt that they were served ads that were irrelevant to them, which could have contributed to the poor recall. 50% said that they mute ads if they can’t skip them and 8% said they don’t mind watching ads but hate if they have to watch it twice.