In November 2024,  one of India’s biggest FMCG companies, Hindustan Unilever, started getting a barrage of complaints from its consumers, who said they were seeing the same Dove and Surf Excel ads repeatedly on OTT platforms during a single watch session. Some of them were shown the same ads as many as 150 times within a week. 

Now, with the IPL around the corner, HUL—which spends nearly Rs 4,000 crore on ads annually—couldn’t afford to ignore these complaints. So what followed was a series of investigations. And what they discovered has opened a real can of worms for not just JioHotstar, the platform that will be streaming the IPL, but OTT platforms in general. 

The big issue is a serious mismatch between what was promised and what’s actually being delivered for ad campaigns, according to seven insiders from HUL, Disney, and other industry rivals who spoke to The Ken. 

So what happens when a big spender starts feeling like it’s not getting what it signed up for during the biggest streaming event of the year? The Ken reporter Rounak Kumar Gunjan speaks to Daybreak hosts Snigdha and Rahel. 

Tune in. 

Listen to ‘One Billion in 10 Minutes’, our new mini series based on The Ken’s inaugural case competition. 

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