No.: BMR2004
After the "teacher" who plays the role of "bumping into the face" in information flow advertisements, ape psychological counseling once again encounters a crisis of trust.
If it is only a matter of time before you get the certificate, you can get it as the teacher qualification exam returns to normal. However, from the "advertising oolong" to the qualification certificate, it is debatable whether the expansion of online education platform deviates from the essence of teaching and educating people, and it is more profitable.
Under the circumstance of capital, do online educational institutions use technology to expand service boundaries to meet the learning needs of more children, or are they more profit-driven, constantly selling anxiety, causing involution and selling teaching knowledge that is of no value to children?
202 1 1 18, the website of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published an article entitled "Online Education under the Vortex of Capital", pointing to the problems of excessive capitalization of online education, rampant marketing and difficult supervision, and "naming names" for the marketing behavior of the online education platform.
65438+1October 2 1 day, Guangming Daily published an article entitled "Online education needs to be people-oriented rather than capital-oriented", pointing out that online education institutions with excessive funds should first consider the preservation and appreciation of funds and the profit in the operation process, so the content and quality of education and training become increasingly irrelevant.
Capital is a double-edged sword. After 10 rounds of financing, the accumulated financing amount exceeded $5.3 billion, and the valuation reached1700 million. Can we end the healthy development of "burning money" and let the students on the platform grow up healthily without slowing down?
The teacher is "undocumented"?
Recently, in an information flow video advertisement of ape tutor, a middle-aged woman who claimed to be a primary school math teacher all her life became an English teacher for 40 years in the advertisement of Gaotu classroom, and she was also a "teacher" in the advertisement videos of homework help and Qingbei online schools.
If the "teacher" in the advertisement is regarded as an actor, it is understandable that a person has multiple roles. However, because the qualifications and abilities of teachers in educational institutions are the core of building brand trust, such "cross-dressing" greatly reduces brand credibility.
Many of Zhang Hua's companies are children actors, which meet the marketing needs of online education platforms. He felt that online education suddenly rose after the epidemic and the demand for advertising soared. "It wasn't big before. Most children actors shoot some TVC advertisements."
The drama video advertisements shot by small actors are basically put on short video platforms, and some are print advertisements.
Zhang Hua once worked with the producer who filmed the advertisement of "Ape Tutor". At that time, the actors they asked for could not be filmed on similar educational platforms. Zhang Hua bluntly said, "As an actor's agency, it is impossible to accept only your works and not other people's works, and your expenses are not high. Not only do I disagree, but parents and children also disagree. "
In this case, the same actor can easily appear in different educational brands.
So far, Zhang Hua's young actors have participated in the shooting of print advertisements in many educational institutions.
Zhang Hua explained that each side has many groups, and different groups are doing this. Some groups may insist on exclusivity, while others may compromise. Compared with the sponsorship of ape instructors for the Winter Olympics and the investment in brand advertisements such as CCTV, satellite TV variety shows, elevators and bus stop signs, the investment in short video effect advertisements may be "dwarfed".
According to relevant reports, in the first half of 2020, the comprehensive investment in brand categories such as CCTV, satellite TV variety show and elevator was as high as 654.38+0 billion yuan; In the two months of summer vacation, 2.5 billion yuan was invested in Tik Tok and WeChat. Its brand zebra AI class has invested more than one billion yuan.
The advertising and marketing chaos about online education does not stop there.
According to Article 38 of the Advertising Law, "minors under the age of ten shall not be used as advertising spokespersons." However, many online education platforms choose minors to appear in various advertisements around the vague area of the definition of "spokesperson".
Most of Zhang Hua's young actors are under 10, and the young actor who used to shoot video advertisements for ape tutors is only 6 years old. Regarding this provision of the Advertising Law, Zhang Hua said that our major is casting actors and providing actors for producers. As for how the producer communicates with Party A and the media, it is the producer's business.
Does this advertisement shot by minors violate the advertising law?
Although some educational brands have changed the name of "spokesperson" to "experience officer", Zhao Zhanling's analysis shows that it is actually an advertising spokesperson.
Although Ape tutors did not designate child stars as their brand spokespersons, a large number of advertisements were shot with children.
In this "gray zone", the commercial operation of online education is bringing anxiety and comparison to more children and parents through underage actors-"If you see other children signing up, you should report it to me."
Yu Yong pointed out that advertising investment follows the law of diminishing marginal benefits. With the increase of the number of advertisements, the influence is weakened, and even "negative utility" is produced, which causes the audience to be bored.
In Yu Yong's view, it is more like hype that ape tutor becomes the official online education service sponsor of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics. "The education industry must endorse the teaching effect and cannot rely on commercial speculation, otherwise it will be a chicken feather."
Arbitrary marketing has become the norm in the online education industry. Under the kidnapping of capital, the high demand for traffic conversion makes brand competition become competition for advertising fees. According to statistics, in the third quarter of 2020, the sales and marketing expenses of listed companies such as Who to Learn from and Netease Youdao accounted for more than 100% of the total revenue, all of which were "burning money".
Prior to this, relevant persons of ape counseling have said that financing is mainly used to polish products and improve services and technologies, which is an invisible cost, and this part of investment is even higher than the explicit advertising cost.
In the case of high marketing cost and teaching cost, ape instructors who burn money should tell the capital story of "blood listing"
"Working without a license" is not the "pot" of the epidemic.
Recently, some media disclosed that up to now, there are 359 teachers with teacher qualification certificates, most of whom have been "teaching without a license" for a long time, which is suspected of violating the relevant provisions in the "Implementation Opinions on Regulating Off-campus Network Training" issued by the Ministry of Education and other departments.
As can be seen from the tutorial APP, there are indeed some teachers who have no qualification information. Some show that the exam passed, waiting for certification, and some show that the written test passed in the teacher qualification exam.
For some teachers who have no qualification certificates, the counseling customer service said that in 2020, due to the epidemic situation, the teacher qualification examination was cancelled, and some teachers have completed the filing, which will be updated in time after the examination is resumed. After the certificate is uploaded, it needs background review, and relevant information will be uploaded as soon as possible after it is passed.
Because of the epidemic, seven departments, including Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, introduced the policy of "taking posts first, then taking exams" in 2020, but this policy is aimed at college graduates, who can only engage in auxiliary work before obtaining professional qualifications.
It can be seen that the statement that the qualification certificate has not been obtained due to the epidemic situation is difficult to establish.
Wang Xing said that it is very common in education and training institutions before going to work without a license. Teachers in many educational institutions come to work first, and then send delegations to sign up for research. However, from the second half of 2065438+2009, unlicensed employment began to be strictly investigated. The epidemic situation has passed, and it is not supported to work before obtaining evidence.
From July 2065438 to July 2009, the Ministry of Education and other six departments issued the "Implementation Opinions on Standardizing Off-campus Network Training", which clearly stipulated that all teachers should hold teacher qualification certificates, and the names, photos and teacher qualification certificates of trainers should be publicized in a prominent position on the training platform and course interface.
Yu Yong said that at present, the state has the same requirements for teachers in online and offline education, and they must have education qualification certificates before they can take up their posts. This is stipulated by the state.
However, Ape Tutoring announced that the cumulative number of users of its products, such as Ape Tutoring, Ape Question Bank, Ape Search, Ape Mouth Calculation and Zebra AI Classroom, exceeded 400 million. Among them, the user refers to the unique ID of the device, with more than 4 million regular paying users.
The teaching mode of ape tutoring adopts the dual-teacher mode, that is, "big class live broadcast, small class tutoring", in which a lecturer gives lectures live, followed by a tutor who is responsible for answering questions and correcting homework.
It is understood that the track, which is also broadcast live in large classes, told the public in the third quarter of 2020 that the average capacity of each class rose from 1400 last year to 2800.
Although large class live broadcast has its scale advantage, a live broadcast can allow thousands of students to attend classes at the same time. However, the number of 4 million users and more than 300 certified teachers may still be difficult to match.
Regarding the class capacity of after-school tutoring, the customer service of ape tutoring said that there are about 50 students in a special training class and about 30 students in a systematic class.
Asked about the number of in-service teaching teachers at present, the customer service said that it was impossible to give them, and said that all teachers have solid academic literacy and rich teaching experience, and they all have systematic training after joining the job.
Famous schools are not equal to famous teachers.
In the short video advertisements of ape tutors, graduates from famous universities such as Tsinghua and Peking University often speak for themselves. In the publicity, it is also said that the lecturers are all elite teachers with many years of teaching experience or front-line teachers who graduated from famous schools at home and abroad such as 985, 2 1 1.
According to the customer service, the undergraduate education is at the average level among teachers. From the information of ape tutors, it can be seen that "bachelor degree or above, relevant majors are preferred, and double-class institutions are preferred", and double-class is not a mandatory condition.
Yu Yong believes that students who graduate from prestigious schools are not equal to famous teachers. The first step to become a famous teacher is to become a qualified teacher. In addition to having a certificate, we should also undergo systematic training to understand the needs of teaching and the psychological characteristics of students. The second step is to become an excellent teacher. With patient and meticulous guidance, many children get good grades and make great progress, and it takes at least three to five years to temper. The third step is to become a famous teacher, not only to substitute for classes, but also to train teachers and make contributions to the academic field, which takes more than 10 years.
The qualification certificate is the threshold, and the prestigious school is the aura. These do not represent real qualities and abilities. For students in K 12 stage, teachers should not only teach knowledge, improve scores, but also shoulder the responsibility of guiding values.
The network platform has regulations on the content of teachers' lectures, but it is difficult to restrain the values that people's teachers should have.
On the platform of ape tutoring, there is a junior high school Chinese teacher who is a master of Peking University and has won the title of Peking University National Scholarship and Peking University Excellent Graduate.
In class, such a schoolmaster asks students to guess how many scholarships they have won, while saying that "the book has its own golden house, the book has its own Yan Ruyu, and the book has tickets".
Teachers who graduated from prestigious schools have very bright resumes. Although this method is used to encourage everyone to study hard, it is inevitably too utilitarian to directly lead the learning purpose to "tickets", especially for children who have just entered the first grade.
Yu Yong pointed out that every industry has its core buttons. Not everyone can master the button when they enter the education industry, which is related to feelings, genes and moral bottom line.
Yu Yong believes that entering the education track should have the same access system as the food and medicine industry, which is a major event related to the national economy and people's livelihood. In the future, China needs a successor with pattern, vision, international vision and the ability to participate in international undertakings to help us steer. "Can such students be created under the drive of capital?"
The article "Network Education under the Capital Vortex" on the website of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection points out that education is a major plan of the country and the party. To guide and supervise the online education provided by off-campus training institutions, and urge off-campus online training institutions to better implement the education policy of the party and the state.
Yu Yong believes that students in K9 stage need personalized and targeted training, and large class teaching is suitable for adult education and high school students with self-learning ability. "In the short term, it is to see the improvement of students' grades. In the long run, teachers should give children a master key, enlighten their wisdom, open their minds and horizons, and enlarge the pattern of students. This is the leading role of excellent teachers. "
Parents complain that it is difficult to refund fees, and capital is optimistic about unicorns.
In addition to marketing chaos and teachers' qualifications, ape counseling has also been repeatedly complained about its services.
On the black cat complaint platform, many consumers reported that it was difficult to deliver and refund the materials of the ape counseling course. Among them, some parents of students reported that they promised to refund or transfer classes before the trial, but in fact, they could not get a full refund after asking for a refund.
Regarding the difficulty of refunding fees, the customer service said that the system class supports refunding fees before the start of the next day, but it cannot be refunded after the start of the special training class.
Ape tutoring online course adopts double-teacher live broadcast mode. Each class is equipped with a lecturer and several counselors. The lecturer gives lectures, and the tutor supervises the study and corrects the homework.
For students, it is difficult to see whether the lecturer is suitable for them after only one class. This also leads to the problem of difficult refund brought by the prepaid system.
In the face of homogeneous counseling brands, if the refund system is not friendly enough, it will also affect parents' decisions.
Although it is already in the head, in the fierce competition, ape counseling has not really landed.
Because online large-scale live broadcast has a good profit model and financial model, the gross profit margin can reach 50%-70%, so it is highly sought after by capital. But such a high gross profit also holds up the cost of obtaining customers.
In June, 2020, the chairman of New Oriental Education Technology Group said that the cost of obtaining customers at this stage accounts for almost 50% of the tuition fees paid by students. In the context of high cost, "the 80% continuation rate of online education is a' life and death line', and you can't live below this ratio."
Shuaike, co-founder of online education company, once revealed that the update rate of online courses in primary and secondary schools is around 75%, and the next goal is to reach 80% of the "safety line".
From June, 5438 to February, 2020, Ape tutor completed the $300 million series F financing, and the investor was Yunfeng Fund. This is considered to be the last round of financing before listing.
According to the "White Paper on Online Education Online Courses Market in China in 2020" and "20021Forward-looking Report", the total amount of tutoring financing will reach 3.5 billion US dollars in 2020, and the huge amount of single financing will set a new record for the education industry, and it will lead the industry with more than 4 million regular course paying users, ranking the first echelon in the industry.
Regarding the estimated time to market, customer acquisition cost, profitability and other issues, counseling has not responded.
The aftermath of the epidemic has started again, and offline education has turned online. When traditional educational institutions transform online through OMO platform, learning and thinking, and New Oriental rely on offline accumulation, how can a pure online education platform build its own core competitiveness?
Yu Yong said that institutions with excellent teachers, good service level and teaching content that can bring satisfaction to parents and students will survive healthily, while institutions maintained by capital-driven advertising marketing will not have a long life cycle.
As pointed out in the Guangming Daily article above, the institutions that used to get returns from the sales of course products could not compete with those that got returns from a large amount of financing in the same market, so more and more online education institutions were squeezed to seek investment. When more and more online education institutions have this demand, the nature of online education institutions has to change: education is getting weaker and stronger.
"Too much capital orientation will inevitably dilute its own educational characteristics; Leaving or violating people-oriented, any educational institution, including online educational institutions, will not go far. " The article pointed out.