Clear communication is call of the day as brands vie for consumer recall 

Digital video may be booming in India, but consumers are remembering less than ever, and cluttered, jargon-heavy advertising is emerging as the biggest casualty. As the volume of content grows faster than the consumer’s capacity to absorb it, the industry is confronting a sobering reality: attention is not just fragmented; it is actively fleeing complexity. 

With attention spans shrinking and feeds overflowing with content, brands are discovering that clear, concise communication is no longer just a creative choice; it is becoming the only route to being noticed at all.

Marketers across sectors say they are witnessing a steep decline in ad recall, even as video consumption hits historic highs. This widening gap between exposure and impact is prompting a fundamental reassessment of how brands communicate. Audiences are overwhelmed, fatigued by similar formats, and increasingly quick to skip, mute or scroll past anything that feels dense or mentally demanding.

Only 11 brands cross 3% recall: Read e4m report on the study

What does the data say? 

Data backs this shift. A recent study by the R K SWAMY Centre for Study of Indian Markets (CSIM) finds that 93% of users watch videos on their phones daily, for an average 2.17 hours, yet they recall only 1.5 brands. More than 600 brands register less than 1% recall, and only 11 brands cross 3%. Despite heavy usage of YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, recall numbers remain uniformly low across platforms.

But the real insight sits beneath the numbers: respondents struggled to remember not just brands but even creative cues. Many referred to campaigns generically - “those clothes ads” or “that shampoo ad”, signalling that the messaging itself is failing to land. Complexity, buzzwords and cluttered storytelling are being filtered out instantly.

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Vanity metrics losing sheen?

This broader erosion of attention is also shaping platform strategies. Speaking to exchange4media, Ankit Goyle, Head of Marketing, India, Snap Inc, noted that the industry’s long-standing dependence on vanity metrics is quickly becoming obsolete. 

“We, at Snap, have been seeing this, there is a problem of attention which is translating into the metrics you’re mentioning,” Goyle said. “Vanity metrics dominated conversations for years, but marketers are beginning to realise they don’t deliver business impact. That’s why we’ve been propagating attention as a planning metric.”

Goyle explained the gap between what is played versus what is actually noticed. “If an ad is playing on TV but you’re on your phone, the view-through rate is one, but your attention is actually zero. Bringing attention into planning has helped brands we work with see a 22% lift in mind measures, which is significant.”

He added that this shift represents the next wave of digital advertising, driven by the right mix of format, platform and creative, with attention at the core.

Is attention becoming advertising’s new currency? Read here

This is especially relevant for Gen Z audiences. The Attention Advantage study by Snapchat, WPP Media and Lumen highlights that India’s 377 million Gen Z consumers, projected to wield $2 trillion in spending power by 2035, have near-zero tolerance for ads that don’t immediately connect. Their behaviour further underscores the central theme: relevance and clarity now outperform scale and noise.

Brands across categories echo this shift as well. Amarnath Dutta, CMO, Cycle Pure Agarbathi said that low ad recall reflects not just fatigue but a deeper communication problem. Overloaded audiences now tune out anything generic, noisy or cluttered, and as ads start to look and sound alike, recall inevitably drops.

“People tune out anything that feels like noise rather than value. Real recall comes not from louder repetition, but deeper emotional connection and cultural relevance,” he said. For a legacy brand like Cycle Pure, this has meant returning to the fundamentals of authenticity and emotional truth. Cycle Pure Agarbathi grounds its communication in ritual and emotion, creating feelings that stay with people long after the ad is forgotten.

Meanwhile, S Narasimhan, EVP and Chief Digital Officer at R K SWAMY, added that there is a growing tendency to carpet-bomb viewers with content regardless of its relevance, leading not just to fatigue but irritation. “While this is true for the majority, there are brands that are able to cut through as well. This can be achieved through more carefully targeted and judicious spends across the customer journey, personalised content and meaningful engagement. This really is the key to breaking through the clutter,” he explained. 

This shift towards intentionality is pushing brands to reassess not just what they say, but how, and how often they say it. He also outlined how the brand ensures its campaigns earn maximum attention. Narasimhan said they follow the same principles R K SWAMY recommends to clients: maintaining consistency, ensuring sufficiency without overkill, sustaining communication over time, and keeping a sharp focus. “These fundamentals hold true across Digital, TV, Print, and Outdoor. Just because it’s digital, many people assume anything goes—but that’s what leads to clutter.”

Steps to ensure the clarity of the ads was also explained by Dutta. He said the brand ensures clarity by prioritising meaning over visibility. Cycle Pure’s communication is built on sensory and emotional storytelling, drawing on the incense category’s links to prayer and calm rather than transactional messaging. The brand leans on its 77-year legacy and trust to speak softly but with purpose, often highlighting initiatives in education and women’s skill-building that generate authentic word-of-mouth. And instead of adding to the clutter, Cycle Pure focuses on context and being present in moments where rituals and emotions are naturally high, such as festivals and temple spaces, thus creating recall through relevance rather than volume.

The way forward

The way forward lies in rethinking not just where brands show up, but how they speak. With attention fragmenting and recall at historic lows, marketers will need to prioritise clarity, relevance and emotional resonance over volume. Simpler storytelling, purposeful communication and context-driven placements will define the next phase of digital advertising,  where being understood matters far more than merely being seen.

“Consumers today gravitate toward brands that say one thing clearly rather than many things loudly. In a fatigue-heavy world, clarity becomes power,” said Dutta. 

He said simplicity for the brand means anchoring each campaign in a single emotional idea, using clean, ritual-focused communication, and keeping product storytelling focused, whether through clear fragrance families or festival packs that ease consumer choice. Intuitive packaging and straightforward calls to action further reduce friction. Their fragrance refreshes and Three-in-One packs, he noted, showed how simplifying decisions can boost both conversion and recall, proving that simple messages travel faster and stay longer. 

This was echoed by Narasimhan, who said simplicity and clear messaging will become a strategic competitive advantage for brands in 2025. He noted that spending on vague, mediocre content with no customer connection only sets a brand up for failure and wastes resources. The imperative, he said, is to clearly define desired outcomes and calibrate campaigns accordingly, from platform choices and investment levels to content strategy and overall quality.

In conclusion, as Dutta noted, the competitive edge in 2025 will come not from doing more, but from doing what matters: creating fewer, more meaningful interventions; prioritising experiences over conventional ads; and leading with sincere purpose instead of loud persuasion. In a landscape where attention is scarce and audiences are increasingly selective, brands that simplify, humanise and communicate with intention will be the ones that stand out, and stay remembered.