R K Swamy’s Centre for Study of Indian Markets has released a white paper that cuts through the hype around digital video advertising.

The study, conducted by Hansa Research across 10 major cities with 3,000 respondents, shows that while India spends thousands of crores on digital video ads, the medium delivers surprisingly poor brand recall.

Even with 93 percent of respondents watching videos daily for more than two hours on mobile phones, the ads they see barely register.

Key highlights of the report:

Video consumption dominates daily entertainment

• 93 percent watch videos daily on their phones

• Average viewing time: 2.17 hours a day

• Regional languages dominate consumption

• WhatsApp emerges as the most viewed and shared source for videos

Brand recall is the real weak spot

• Respondents recalled only 1.5 brands on average

• Over 600 brands were mentioned, but almost all had a recall of below 1 percent recall

• Only 11 brands crossed the 3 percent recall mark: Zepto, Zomato, Meesho, Nescafé, Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, Blinkit, Country Delight, Rummy Circle and Dream 11

• Most recall clustered around online shopping, delivery, groceries and coffee

• Very few respondents could remember creative details

Platforms don’t translate viewership into memory

• YouTube is the dominant platform for ad exposure, followed by Facebook and Instagram

• Skipping behaviour is rampant -  78 percent skip ads whenever possible

• 50 percent mute ads when they can’t skip

• 69 percent feel the ads shown to them are irrelevant

Demographic and platform-based patterns

• Younger audiences recall more ads on Meta platforms

• Q-commerce brands skew higher among younger respondents

• Longer screen-time moderately improves recall, but still at a low baseline

WhatsApp remains a quiet powerhouse

• 74 percent watch most or all videos they receive on WhatsApp

• Nearly half of the videos they watch, reinforcing strong peer-to-peer circulation

R K Swamy is continuing this study month on month.

S Narasimhan, 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.”

Praveen Nijhara, CEO, Hansa Research Group, added, “While YouTube was highly viewed, the recall of brands on the medium was poor. So was the case with Facebook and Instagram. A significant majority of the respondents report skipping ads and muting them.”