Despite the substantial time spent on digital platforms, brand recall is low: R K SWAMY’s White Paper on Impact of Ads on Digital Video Platforms

MUMBAI: Watching videos online has emerged as the number one form of entertainment, with 93% of respondents consuming videos on their mobile phones for an average of 2.17 hours per day. Video consumption in regional languages beats English by multiple times.

Despite the substantial time spent on digital platforms, brand recall is low. On an average, respondents could remember only 1.5 brands. Of the 600+ brands recalled in total, only 11 of them were recalled by 3% or more of the respondents. These were primarily online brands or gaming platforms.

R K SWAMY Centre for Study of Indian Markets (CSIM), a think tank that conducts large-scale studies to shed light on the nuances of the Indian market, today unveiled an empirical study ‘Recall of Advertising on Digital Video Platforms & Channels.’ This white paper examines how digital video advertising is consumed and its impact on fundamental mind measures like Brand Awareness and recall. This is an independent study of the medium that draws thousands of crores in ad spend.

Conducted by Hansa Research, a wholly-owned subsidiary of R K SWAMY, the study surveyed 3,000 respondents across 10 key markets, namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Pune, Patna and Ludhiana. The participants were aged 18–50 years and evenly split across gender and income groups, and interviewed face-to-face. Their mobile devices were checked to validate usage of apps and screen time.

The study shows that videos received through WhatsApp emerged as the most viewed and shared, confirming strong peer-to-peer sharing. R K SWAMY is continuing this study month on month. The aim is to get to 30,000 respondents and then launch a subscription service for brands.

The Findings

The findings of this study are eye-opening, summarised as follows:

1. The recall of brands, across the board, was poor. More than 600 brands were recalled, but each brand was recalled by less than 1% of the respondents.
2.  Only 11 brands have more than 3% recall. These were: Zepto, Zomato, Meesho, Nescafe, Flipkart, Amazon, Swiggy, Blinkit, Country Delight, Rummy Circle and Dream 11.
3.  Respondents recalled only about 1.5 brands on an average – the average is more or less similar across platforms.
4.  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.
5. The most frequently recalled brands are associated with online shopping, online food ordering/delivery, groceries and coffee.
6.  Most recalled attributes reflect the features/benefits of the online brand, like “fast delivery”, potentially influenced by their past experience with the brand.
7.  Very few were able to recall specific details of the creative content itself.
8.  Nearly three out of five respondents found the ads served to them irrelevant.
9. Three out of four WhatsApp videos received are viewed and forwarded.
10. Three out of five viewers prefer to skip ads on Digital Videos, if they can.
11. YouTube was the highest used platform for watching videos, followed by Facebook and Instagram.

What can explain the findings?

Several hypothesis can be deliberated to understand the low recall of advertising on Digital Videos:

a) The Digital video landscape is vast and lacks a concentrated focal point.
b) The impressions served are unique to each viewer, based on the platform’s appreciation of viewer
preference. Frequency of views of a single message is unclear, as this is not measured.
c) The Digital Video viewing is not appointment viewing, as was/is the case with primetime viewing on Television. The viewing is very scattered, not accumulating a mass audience at any one time.
d) Advertising is easily skipped on Digital Videos.
e) The method of planning and buying impressions/time on digital videos may have to be reviewed from the point of adequacy and impact.

All of these merit deep introspection and investigation. This white paper for now provides a detailed insight into recall of brands advertised and how people consume Digital Videos and view advertising that appears on them. The Study also assessed ad content recall, not covered in this paper. This can be discussed on request.

S Narasimhan, EVP, Chief Digital Officer RK 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, said, “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.”