eNews
Digital video advertising faces a recall crisis: R K Swamy study
MUMBAI: India’s advertisers are pouring between Rs 12,000 crore and Rs 22,000 crore into digital video platforms. They’re getting precious little bang for their buck.
A sweeping study by R K Swamy Centre for Study of Indian Markets has exposed a dismal truth: viewers can barely remember the brands they’ve just seen advertised. Across 3,000 respondents in 10 cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Pune, Patna and Ludhiana—the average person recalled just 1.5 brands. That’s despite watching 2.17 hours of video daily on their mobiles.
The findings are brutal. Whilst over 600 brands were recalled in total, only 11 managed to lodge themselves in the minds of more than 3 per cent of respondents. The lucky few? Quick-commerce darlings Zepto, Zomato, Meesho, Blinkit and Swiggy, alongside e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon, plus Nescafe, Country Delight, Rummy Circle and Dream 11.
“Many respondents had difficulty in remembering and accurately identifying brands,” said R K Swamy executive vice-president and chief digital officer S Narasimhan. “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.”
The study, conducted by Hansa Research between August and September 2025, interviewed respondents aged 18 to 50, split evenly by gender and across income groups. Researchers physically checked mobile devices to verify app usage and screen time—no self-reporting fudge allowed.
YouTube dominated viewership at 64 per cent, trailed by Facebook at 19 per cent and Instagram at 17 per cent. Yet recall remained stubbornly low across all platforms. Regional languages ruled: 93 per cent of respondents watched videos daily, with most preferring content in their native tongues over English.
The ad experience itself is punishing. Three out of five respondents skip ads whenever possible. Half mute them. Nearly three in five consider the ads served to them irrelevant. Seven in ten detest seeing the same ad repeatedly.
“While YouTube was highly viewed, the recall of brands on the medium was poor,” said Hansa Research Group chief executive Praveen Nijhara. “So was the case with Facebook and Instagram. A significant majority of the respondents report skipping ads and muting them.”
One bright spot: WhatsApp. Three out of four videos received on the platform get viewed and forwarded, confirming the power of peer-to-peer sharing over paid placement.
The study suggests several culprits for the recall catastrophe. The digital video landscape is vast and fragmented, lacking television’s appointment viewing. Ads are easily skipped. Frequency of exposure to individual messages remains unmeasured. And the scattered nature of consumption means no mass audience ever accumulates.
For advertisers accustomed to metrics like impressions, views, click-through rates and cost-per-thousand views—all supply-side and self-certified—the findings pose uncomfortable questions about what they’re actually buying. R K Swamy plans to continue the study monthly. The white paper is available on the company’s website.
The message for brands burning through crores on digital video? Your ads are vanishing into the ether. And nobody’s noticing.
eNews
Paisabazaar launches Credit Premier League 2.0
Nationwide campaign rewards highest credit scores with Rs 1 lakh top prize.
MUMBAI: When credit scores become a national league, even your CIBIL report starts feeling like it’s playing in the IPL and Paisabazaar has just kicked off the second season. Paisabazaar, India’s leading marketplace for financial products and the country’s largest free credit score platform, has announced the return of the Credit Premier League (CPL) 2.0, a fun, nationwide initiative to recognise and reward individuals with the highest credit scores.
Building on the success of the first edition, CPL 2.0 introduces higher rewards and broader participation. The individual(s) with the highest credit score in the country will win Rs 1 lakh, while state champions will each receive Rs 10,000. Additionally, all participants from the winning state, the one with the highest average credit score will also be rewarded.
All winnings will be credited directly to winners’ PB Wallet, allowing them to pay credit card bills, recharge mobiles, or settle utility bills seamlessly on the Paisabazaar platform.
Paisabazaar CEO Santosh Agarwal said the campaign aims to make credit awareness more engaging and mainstream. “With CPL, we are bringing together engagement, gamification and rewards to make conversations around credit scores more mainstream,” he noted. “Our focus remains on building a financially aware and credit-healthy Bharat.”
The first edition of CPL saw over 5.5 million participants, with the highest individual score touching 861. Delhi recorded the highest average credit score of 746.
Consumers can participate simply by checking their free credit score on the Paisabazaar platform or app. The CPL leaderboard and rankings will be available exclusively on the Paisabazaar App.
In a country where financial dreams are serious business, Paisabazaar has found a smart way to turn credit scores into an exciting game – because when your financial health gets rewarded, everyone wants to play.
