Exam cancellations lead to testing times for Indian ad sector
The recent paper leak fiasco which led to the cancellation of three prime national competitive exams has not only impacted millions of aspiring doctors, PhD scholars and teachers but also has had a cascading effect on India’s advertising sector. Education brands, especially coaching centres which offer long-term preparatory courses for these competitive exams, usually spend most of their marketing budgets when the results of NEET and NET are declared, mostly in June-July. Fearing paper leaks, the National Testing Agency (NTA) has recently cancelled entrance tests for postgraduate medical courses (NEET-PG), PhD and lectureship for humanities (UGC-NET) and for science streams (CSIR-UGC NET) which were slated to be held in June. While results of the entrance test for undergraduate medical courses (NEET-UG) were declared on June 4, the CBI probes following the paper leak fiasco, irregularities of grace marks and dubious cases of full scorers have cast clouds of uncertainity over their fate. “Since three top exams have been cancelled and the fate of NEET-UG hangs in the balance, the usual buoyancy of education brands around the exam results is missing. Most coaching brands have hit the pause button on advertising”, news channel executives told e4m. What is worse, no one knows when the stalemate will end. The government sources say that it may take a couple of months to reschedule exams and declare results. This ad pause has come at a time when India’s advertising industry is already reeling under pressure as the government expenditure on ads, both centre and states, has ceased since March this year due to elections, industry leaders told e4m. Leading education brands prefer Print, TV and outdoor media for advertising which includes all segments- Hindi, English and Regional. They buy slots at prime time shows on TV channels, take over full pages of leading newspapers and occupy hundreds of hoardings across metros, tier 1, 2 and small towns to showcase their toppers and success rates. The objective is to acquire new consumers as quickly as possible amid stiff competition in the sector. Course fee for these coveted courses run in lakhs. While print media owners are also perplexed due to these unexpected turn of events which spiraled over the last 10 days, they still have their fingers crossed. After all, the education sector topped with a 19% share of ad space in print during January-June 2023, as per a TAM report. OOH has taken a profund hit. “Education brands contribute 15-20 percent of OOH revenue. Since results are stuck, education brands have held their spends,” Pawan Bansal, COO of Jagran Engage and Chairman of Indian Outdoor Advertising Association told e4m. Ashish Sehgal, chief revenue officer of ZEEL, admits the impact of exam cancellations on advertising, however, he insists education brands spend very little on GEC channels, only 5-7 percent of their spending. India has become home to one of the fastest-growing coaching industries in recent years. The total market revenue of the coaching industry in India is estimated to be Rs 60,000 crore which is projected to reach 1.3 lakh crore by 2028. A primary driver of this industry is the high demand for admission into select few reputed institutions through entrance examinations.