Analysis of advertising in the education industry in Q1 2021

The internal competition in the education industry is accelerating, and barriers are slowly being broken down from the outside.

Faced with repeated policy pressure and increasing difficulty in acquiring customers, many leading Internet companies have accelerated their layout in online education. For example, ByteDance has spent billions to promote GuaGuaLong and GogoKid. Zhihu has vigorously developed online education and achieved good revenue last year. The success of GuaGuaLong also proves that "outsiders" can also make a difference in education.

On the other hand, the lax supervision of suppliers and agents caused by large-scale burning of money has damaged the "brand image" of leading companies. How can the chaos in educational advertising be resolved under the dual supervision of both the government and the private sector? Stick to the old ways or find a new way?

1-1 Amid customer acquisition anxiety, the number of advertisements increases year by year

According to relevant reports, there were 111 financing events in the education industry in 2020, with a total financing amount exceeding 100 billion yuan. This is capital's affirmation of the online education market and the confidence for education advertisers to continue spending money.

In terms of online advertising alone, the education and training industry accounted for 5.98% of the total number of advertisements in 2020 , and the education industry accounted for 6.42% of the total number of advertisements in Q1 2021, an increase compared to last year . Although large-scale spending can no longer bring about obvious linear growth, facing increasingly severe internal and external pressures, stopping investment is tantamount to surrender.

Looking specifically at the monthly advertising trends of advertisers, February coincided with the Spring Festival, and the conversion rate on the education backend was insufficient. Many advertisers chose to suspend advertising during the Spring Festival, so the number of advertisements dropped significantly.

Among the sub-sectors, advertisements for vocational education and training, academic qualifications examinations, language training, and interest tutoring account for a high proportion, reflecting the knowledge anxiety of adults. Among them, there was a teacher qualification promotion in March, and advertisers of vocational skills training also increased their investment accordingly.

1-2 Sogou Xingyao users care most about improving their education

Comparing the proportion of education industry advertisements on the five major platforms, there are more education industry advertisements on Sogou Xingyao , while the number of education industry advertisements on Bytedance only accounts for 2%.

It is speculated that this is related to the previous false advertisement of "an actor endorsing four education brands at the same time". It is reported that after the incident, the Douyin platform cleaned up a batch of education advertisements and strengthened review and supervision, which may cause some education advertisers to reduce their investment in the huge engine.

Specifically speaking of the types of educational advertisements in each channel, the four major platforms , Tencent Advertising, Baidu Information Flow, Sogou Star, and Baidu Baiqingteng, have a high proportion of vocational skills training and academic qualifications examinations , while Bytedance focuses on preschool education and academic qualifications examinations . In addition, advertisers of studying abroad pay more attention to Baidu Baiqingteng channel.

The proportion of advertising attributes can also indirectly illustrate the user portrait of the platform. Sogou Star users are most concerned about improving their academic qualifications, while Bytedance users care about their children's preschool education.

Educational advertisements are emerging in an endless stream, and the main driving force behind them is still the anxiety of parents . According to Daily People's Observation, "chicken baby groups" are becoming popular among parents, that is, chicken-blood-style baby-raising sharing groups. Children as young as 19 months old will start online classes, and their every day is clearly arranged with digital thinking enlightenment, reading, and English animations. These courses mainly come from leading online education brands.

2-1 The Matthew effect is obvious in the education industry, and the market structure is basically determined

The battle among K12 brand owners is in full swing, and there is even an unspoken rule that whoever raises funds is eligible to participate in the battle for customers. This situation has continued into this year. Although the high-growth trend has gradually disappeared, leading companies are still working hard on advertising.

During Q1 2021, the top five brands in terms of the number of education brand advertisements were Xueersi Online School, Gaotu Classroom, Youdao Premium Courses, Yuanfudao, Homework Class, and Zebra AI Courses .

Among them, the annual financing amount of Yuanfudao and Zuoyebang alone accounted for more than 70% of all education platforms. The Matthew effect in the industry is obvious, and leading companies are more likely to be favored by capital.

2-2 There is little difference between popular courses, and education brands seem to be heading for a price war again

App Growing has summarized the main products of major K12 education brands based on the data. Generally speaking, there is not much difference except in price .

1v1 tutoring, teaching aid gift boxes, electronic data packages and teams of famous teachers are the main selling points of K12 education courses, and are also the interest points that will be highlighted in advertising creativity.

2-3 Adult education is mainly aimed at obtaining certificates

In addition, adult education brands Temple Education, Yizhichuan Education and preschool education brand Jiaojiao Academy have also invested heavily in advertising . It is reported that NetEase Youdao's adult education division has integrated the adult section of Youdao's premium courses, and seems to be preparing to vigorously develop adult education courses.

Currently, the courses open to adults are still aimed at obtaining career-related certificates, which are of great help in employment and career choices and are highly purposeful. Among them, advertisements related to fire protection engineer certificates accounted for 60% of the total in Q1 2021 , while in Q1 2020 it was only 40% , indicating that engineering and information engineering certificates are becoming more and more popular.

2-4 Preschool Education App Hot Recommendation

Statistics show that among the top 15 most popular education apps in March, 10 of them are preschool education apps , mainly teaching children literacy, pinyin, reading and writing.

3-1 The overall form of educational advertising materials is mainly pictures

Vocational skills training and academic qualifications examinations that mainly promote form conversions are mainly picture ads, but the proportion of vertical video ads for vocational skills training has dropped significantly, from 16% in Q4 2020 to 6% in Q1 2021 .

The proportion of vertical video advertisements in K12 education also showed a downward trend, from 45% in Q4 2020 to 27% in Q1 2021. It is speculated that this was affected by false advertising and the mass removal of products on the eve of March 15.

3-2 Hot advertising words and popular copywriting in key areas of education

3-3 Behind the formalization of educational advertising, new routines are also being tested

After the false advertising incident, we observed that many advertisements using actors to play famous teachers recommending courses have been quietly taken offline , and the remaining ones have become more templated content. But there are still advertisers who are thinking of new and popular ideas and are not limited by the old routines.

The following are some of the latest advertising ideas in the education industry in the past 30 days:

1) Imitate the opening mode of "U Can U Bibi" and introduce the advantages of the course

The actors played the roles of the affirmative and negative sides. The negative side mainly expressed doubts about learning methods, while the affirmative side started with the course learning methods and also helped to broadcast the course. One question and one answer, the questions get to the point of pain and easily attract user attention .

2) From family education to self-education, anxiety makes people "progress"

The ultimate beneficiaries of educational products are children, and parents' anxiety about education will be passed on to their children. Therefore, many brands have shifted from the parent side to the child side, using anxiety points such as unsatisfactory grades, parental disappointment, and comparison of grades among classmates to attract users.

This phenomenon also often occurs in vocational skills training, academic examinations and language training. It starts with adults' anxiety about positions, salaries and work performance, and conveys the idea that without progress, nothing can be achieved, thereby stimulating registration for courses.

3) Emphasize animation scene interaction and gain knowledge from animation

Nowadays, involution has evolved from a work state to a common social state, and the emergence of AI animation interactive classes is welcomed by parents. Since children should watch animations when they are young, why not learn by watching animations?

This has given rise to a number of AI courses packaged as story animations, and the advertisements launched also present the sophistication, popularity, and intelligence of their own animation IPs in multiple dimensions.

However, the failure of "Super Wings" caused the removal of related animations and courses, which had an adverse impact on Wandou Thinking and Coding Cat, and also served as a reminder to educational brands using animation IP. Although well-known animation IPs can help enlighten children's minds and attract their attention more quickly, abuse or dependence on IPs is not a long-term solution. What is more important is to polish the course itself.

When the slow-growing industry of education catches up with the express train of the Internet, the war for growth is about to break out. The giants, with the tickets obtained from capital, are exploring multiple fields in the industry and competing for dominance. The mid- and low-tier players are struggling to survive, trying to grow or be acquired in the cracks.

This has not only established the awareness of boundless education at the user level, but also achieved unprecedented explosive growth at the product level. But it also sacrifices brand image, advertising quality, and even user experience to a certain extent.

In general, although online education has been strictly regulated, the fact that capital is flocking to it shows that education is a major livelihood issue. With the development of information industrialization and the improvement of user quality, the popularization of online education will become inevitable. In the future, companies should also pay attention to the following aspects in development and marketing:

1. Be focused enough and don’t rely too much on money-burning marketing. Make advertising content more detailed and retain users more attentively.

In terms of advertising materials, we should create differences with other brands, and appropriately get rid of the mentality of repeating and copying hot products, so that users can establish a good impression of the brand in the first step of recognizing the brand, which can pave the way for subsequent marketing.

In terms of user retention, we will strengthen reforms and technological improvements on the service side. The future competition will be a contest of service and content quality. Before stronger supervision comes, leading education brands must learn to hand over education to educators and let the industry return to its essence of educating people. Teachers and teaching levels are the ultimate bond between the platform and users.

2. Explore more, there is always the next opportunity for success.

Entrepreneurs always do business that no one else does and take paths that no one else takes. When preschool education and K12 education are gradually monopolized by giants and mid- and low-end companies fall one after another, there may be a glimmer of hope in finding other tracks. NetEase Youdao has integrated Youdao Premium Courses into the adult learning section, and the vice president of Tencent Education also stated that current policies have given a great boost to vocational education. All this shows that the giants have begun to pay attention to the new track of education.

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Author: App Growing

Source: App Growing