Research on Southeast Asian media habits, published through IAB SEA+India, found that 2 in 3 consumers in the region feel fatigue from seeing the same ads repeatedly on the same channels. The study was run by a demand-side platform, so read its recommendations with that in mind. The finding itself matches what most planners in the region already suspect when they look at frequency reports: the same people see the same spot far too often, in the same place.
What fatigue costs, and why it hides
Fatigue builds quietly. Impressions keep counting, spend keeps pacing, the delivery report looks healthy. What drops is the value of each additional impression to a person who has already seen the ad 6 times this week on the same feed. Past a point, more exposure makes people less receptive to the brand, and the dashboard does not show that.
EMARKETER's summary of the same research (2025) puts numbers on the spread: 66% of respondents across the region say they ignore repetitive ads shown on a single platform, with Indonesia highest at 69%, followed by the Philippines at 67% and Thailand at 65%. Gen Z respondents were 57% more likely to feel annoyed when the same brand appears again and again on one channel.
The same summary carries the other half of the picture. More than half of respondents said ads influence what they buy, led by Thailand (66%) and Indonesia (60%). Audiences in the region still respond to advertising. They respond less to the 9th showing of one spot.
Why the region feels it more
Three habits of regional buying make the problem worse.
First, budgets concentrate. A campaign run across 5 or 6 markets often ends up on the 2 or 3 platforms where setup is easiest in each market, because that is where the insertion orders, the creative specs and the reporting are already in place. Frequency piles up on exactly the surfaces people already find crowded.
Second, each channel is capped on its own. A frequency cap of 3 per week on social, 3 on online video and 3 on display can still add up to 9 or more for the same person, and nobody sees the total because each line lives in a different report.
Third, a regional plan can look diverse while each market is narrow. Ten placements across the region may mean 1 or 2 per market, with the local audience seeing the same creative wherever it goes.
Coordinated frequency, with connected TV as the anchor
The research points to coordination across channels rather than more channels. Per EMARKETER's summary, the study reports that campaigns combining several channels reduced fatigue 2.2 times compared with siloed campaigns. That is the vendor's own measurement, but the mechanism holds: spreading the same number of exposures across more surfaces lowers repetition on each one.
Connected TV earns its place at the centre of that mix for practical reasons. It reaches a broad audience on the largest screen in the home, in long-form content where an ad break is expected. People turn the TV on to watch something and off when they are done; the phone is checked 200 to 300 times a day, as NBCUniversal's streaming chief Matt Strauss put it on the Decoder podcast. A CTV spot reaches a person over a few viewing sessions. Premium streaming inventory, local drama, live sport, news, also carries the kind of context that brand campaigns pay for.
Say a skincare brand runs a 6-week flight in Indonesia and the Philippines. Instead of putting most of the budget on 1 social platform, the planner moves a share into CTV placements on 2 local streaming publishers, keeps social for a lower frequency of reminders, and adds audio for incremental reach. The total exposures per person stay similar. Each surface carries fewer of them.
Coordination has a cost. Premium CTV in the region is still mostly sold direct, publisher by publisher, which is exactly what makes it hard to include in a fast-moving plan. Rates vary widely by market and format, and every publisher answers a brief in its own shape.
Where to start
Start with delivered frequency, not planned frequency. Pull the delivery report for your last regional flight and look at impressions per channel, per market. If most of them sit on 1 or 2 surfaces, that is where the fatigue comes from.
Then rebalance before you add. Decide a total frequency per person for the flight, split it across channels, and agree the split with the client before any insertion order goes out. The trader owns that number. The client confirms it.
Bring CTV in as the anchor in the markets where your audience streams, with placements bought on terms you can read: the publisher's own CPM, the content, the flight dates, the expected delivery per line. Then read delivery against that plan as the flight runs, line by line, so a placement that falls behind or over-delivers is seen in week 2 instead of after the flight.
Where agents help
Most of the time in this goes into asking 6 publishers in 4 markets for plans and comparing what comes back. Skopa, the buying agent from Oderra, sends one brief to many publishers and returns their plans side by side, and a person confirms the plan before anything runs. For publishers, Fanera answers those briefs at their own prices. More on buying premium inventory outside the exchanges in this guide.