The collateral damage of carpet bombing

Experts call for ad frequency management to avoid overkill

- Christina Moniz

Grabbing the attention of consumers is nothing short of an arms race for brands. You stockpile on compelling pieces of advertising and carpet bomb via broadcast channels. If 70% of the messaging is avoided or ignored by the target audience, you make peace with it. But consumers are getting increasingly annoyed and opting out through avoidance mechanisms. And when all that fails they are venting their ire through social channels. That's exactly what happened this 2025 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). As the ball started rolling, marketers began bombarding audiences with advertisements from every corner of the screen so much so that some brands—such as My11Circle, Parle Marie and Kamla Pasand—had to hit the pause button thanks to audience pushback.

The episode brought to the fore a subject that has plagued advertising for years: How do you get consumer eyeballs but prevent ad fatigue? TAM Sports reports Parle Biscuits and KP Pan foods, the maker of Kamla Pasand, together accounted for 12% of the ad volumes during most of the tournament, which meant their ads appeared more frequently than that of other brands during the league.