Indians love ads?

When you get ready to watch a Youtube video and are all eager, what is the first thing that comes up? An ad. It is the most ill-timed and extremely irritating… no one really watches it as all just wait to see the “Skip Ad” button so that they can just get to the video without having to endure this ad.

But wait, that is how some of us behave but statistics shows that most Indians actually watch it fully and completely. Data shows that the top 10 Indian ads on YouTube in 2016 have clocked a breathtaking 400,000 hours of watchtime between January and June 2016. Around 60% of this viewing was on mobile phones.

Storytelling emerged as the winning ingredient for Indian viewers, with six of the 10 ads running far longer than the typical 60-second television commercial. Further, based on the average watchtime per ad, it is clear that customers are willing to invest their time and attention on advertising that is narrative-driven and takes audiences along on a journey.

And which are the top 10 ads? Bajaj V Motorcycle, Amazon India (Aap ki duniya), MakeMyTrip (the one with Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh), Royal Challenge Sports drink (Playbold, fan anthem), Hitachi Home (nothing dirty), Star Sports (Mauka, mauka), Coca Cola (Siddharth Malhotra ad), Pepsi (Pepsi thi jeet gaya), Ariel ( why is laundry only a mother’s job) and Samsung (S7Edge).