Classrooms Are Empty, But Headphones Are On: How S. Chand Used Audio to Reach the Next Generation of Learners

Chand Group, one of India’s most trusted names in educational publishing and test preparation, faced a defining challenge in early 2026: how to stay relevant and visible in an increasingly digital, distracted learning landscape. With students aged 16-20 preparing for competitive exams and parents aged 40+ making purchasing decisions for supplementary study material, S. Chand needed to speak to both audiences – simultaneously, at scale, and in a way that cut through the noise of India’s saturated digital advertising environment. Paytunes designed and executed a 30-day digital audio campaign, placing S. Chand’s message across a powerful mix of music streaming, podcast networks, and international radio apps – including Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music, PocketFM, Zeno, Trinity, Shoutcast, Spreaker, iHeart, Aaj Tak, Jagran, and Money Control Podcast. Targeting Hindi and English-speaking listeners across key cities in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand, the campaign paired in-stream audio spots with companion banner ads to reach learners and decision-makers in their most attentive moments – whether commuting to coaching centres in Faridabad, revising late at night in Lucknow, or listening to news podcasts in Patna.

Reaching India’s Exam Warriors and the Parents Who Back Them: S. Chand’s Campaign Brief

• Primary audience tension: Students aged 16-20 are surrounded by competing edtech apps, content creators, and social platforms – reaching them requires presence where they already spend passive listening time.
• Secondary audience: Parents aged 40+ are the financial decision-makers for study material and coaching support. Audio advertising reaches them during news podcast consumption, commutes, and household activities.
• Brand awareness goal: Establish S. Chand as the go-to audio brand voice in competitive exam preparation across North India’s key academic cities.
• Geographic focus: Prioritise high-density academic markets – Faridabad, Gurugram, Panipat, Hisar, Karnal (Haryana); Lucknow, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Agra, Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh); Patna (Bihar); Ranchi (Jharkhand).
• Retargeting integration: Leverage Paytunes’ audience retargeting capability (AC4, AC5, AC6) to re-engage listeners who had previously responded to S. Chand’s audio campaigns in the education category.
• Multi-message strategy: Deploy three distinct audio scripts to avoid listener fatigue and test message resonance across different audience segments.

Multi-Script Audio Across Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music, and 10+ Podcast Platforms: Reaching North India’s Learners at Every Listening Moment

• Platform mix: Spotify, JioSaavn, and YouTube Music anchored premium streaming reach. PocketFM, Zeno, Trinity, Shoutcast, Spreaker, iHeart, Aaj Tak, Jagran, and Money Control Podcast extended coverage into podcast and news radio audiences.
• Ad format: In-stream audio spots (up to 30 seconds) paired with companion banner display units – providing simultaneous visual reinforcement alongside the audio message.
• Three-script rotation: Three creative scripts (S. Chand Script 1, Script 2, Script 3) were deployed to maintain message freshness across a 30-day run and allow performance comparison across creative variants.
• Age-specific variants: Script variants targeting the 40+ age segment were created and deployed separately – recognising that the parent decision-maker audience requires a different tone and message frame than the student listener.
• Language targeting: Hindi and English language creatives ensured relevance across both vernacular-first and English-medium academic households.
• Buy type: CPM-based buying across all platforms.
• Audience retargeting: Retargeting was implemented via audience segments AC4, AC5, and AC6, re-engaging high-intent listeners identified from prior S. Chand campaign activity in the education vertical.
• Real-time monitoring: Campaign dashboard access was provided for live impression tracking and daily delivery optimisation throughout the 30-day period.

 

1.17x LTR Uplift and Near-Perfect Impression Delivery: How S. Chand’s Audio Campaign Measured Success

• Listen-Through Rate (LTR): Achieved 1.17x above benchmark – listeners who started S. Chand’s audio ad were significantly more likely to hear the complete message than the platform average, demonstrating strong creative relevance and audience-format alignment.
• CTR: Click-through performance came in at 0.83x of benchmark – slightly below the target CTR threshold, which is consistent with audio-first campaigns where listener action typically lags behind audio attention.
• Reach: Campaign delivered impressions at 1.00x of target, confirming platform execution precision.
• Multi-platform consistency: Performance was consistent across Spotify, JioSaavn, and YouTube Music, with no single platform showing underperformance – indicating Paytunes’ programmatic delivery model distributed impressions efficiently.
• Creative variant performance: All three script variants and their 40+ age-segment counterparts showed comparable LTR, suggesting creative quality was maintained across the full rotation.

Two Audiences, One Campaign: How S. Chand’s Audio Reached Students and Parents Simultaneously

• Primary student segment (16-20): Reached during active music streaming sessions on Spotify and JioSaavn – typically in the evenings and during study breaks. This audience responds to energetic, aspiration-led creative.
• Parent/decision-maker segment (40+): Reached predominantly via news podcast platforms (Aaj Tak, Jagran, Money Control Podcast) and during morning commute windows. Separate script variants were deployed for this segment with a more authoritative, value-focused tone.
• Language split: Hindi-language creatives performed strongly in Tier-2 markets (Panipat, Hisar, Karnal, Varanasi, Patna, Ranchi). English-language variants performed comparably in urban Tier-1 markets (Gurugram, Lucknow, Ghaziabad).
• Gender audience: Audience skewed toward male listeners across both age groups – consistent with the competitive exam preparation category in North India where male enrolment in coaching programmes remains dominant.
• Retargeted audience: The AC4, AC5, AC6 retargeting segments – activated from 24th February – showed notably stronger listen-through behaviour, confirming that prior category exposure improves audio ad completion.

Morning Commutes and Late-Night Revision Sessions: When S. Chand’s Audio Audience Listened Most

• Morning window (6AM-10AM): 40+ parent segment was most active during news podcast consumption and commute listening on Aaj Tak, Jagran, and Money Control Podcast.
• Afternoon window (12PM-4PM): Lower overall reach in this window – consistent with student academic schedules during school and coaching hours.
• Evening prime time (6PM-10PM): Peak delivery window for the 16-20 student segment. Music streaming on Spotify and JioSaavn sees highest usage post-coaching hours. LTR performance was strongest in this window.
• Late night (10PM-12AM): Notable listen-through completion for the student segment – a revision and relaxation window where focused, undistracted audio listening drives higher completion rates.
• Weekend performance: Saturday and Sunday delivery windows – particularly Sunday evening – showed above-average LTR, consistent with more relaxed, leisure-led listening behaviour among both audience segments.

Spotify, JioSaavn, and YouTube Music Anchor the Mix: How S. Chand’s Audio Reached Every North Indian Listener

Spotify

Delivered premium streaming reach for the 16-20 student segment with strong LTR performance. Spotify’s ad-supported tier ensures listeners cannot skip in-stream audio, driving undistracted exposure. The platform’s music-first listening environment created ideal conditions for S. Chand’s aspirational audio creative.

Discover how Spotify advertising helps brands drive stronger engagement and sustained listener attention across premium music streaming audiences.

JioSaavn

As the largest audio streaming platform in India by active user base, JioSaavn delivered the highest raw impression volume of the three primary platforms – anchoring the campaign’s reach across both student and parent audiences in Tier-1 and Tier-2 North Indian cities. Hindi-language creative performed particularly well here, given JioSaavn’s vernacular-first user base.

YouTube Music

Contributed strong reach particularly among the 16-20 segment who transition between video and music content on the same platform – enabling S. Chand’s audio to follow the listener across content formats. Companion banner performance was strongest here, as YouTube Music’s interface keeps the display unit visible during playback.

Podcast and News Radio Network (PocketFM, Aaj Tak, Jagran, Money Control Podcast, iHeart, and others)

Delivered targeted reach into the 40+ parent segment through news and current affairs content consumption. Listen-through rates on podcast platforms are inherently high – podcast listeners adopt an intentional, focused listening posture that works in favour of longer audio creative. This network provided credibility alignment for the S. Chand brand message.

 

Insight: The combination of premium music streaming (for student listeners) and news/podcast platforms (for parent decision-makers) allowed S. Chand to speak to both audience segments within a single, unified campaign – demonstrating Paytunes’ ability to design multi-audience audio strategies without sacrificing targeting precision.

Faridabad, Gurugram, and Karnal Lead Haryana: Where S. Chand’s Audio Resonated Deepest Across North India

 

 

• Faridabad – 1.18x – A major coaching hub in Haryana’s NCR belt, Faridabad’s student population showed the highest listen-through performance in the campaign. High youth density and strong Spotify penetration aligned perfectly with S. Chand’s 16-20 audience targeting.
• Gurugram – 1.18x – Equal top performer alongside Faridabad, Gurugram’s digitally advanced, English-comfortable professional population responded well to S. Chand’s bilingual creative – particularly the parent segment tracking children’s academic progression.
• Karnal – 1.18x – Karnal’s strong academic culture – one of Haryana’s top-performing districts for competitive exam results – produced above-benchmark LTR. Hindi-language creative resonated strongly with this audience.
• Lucknow – 1.18x – Uttar Pradesh’s capital and a major exam preparation hub matched Haryana’s top performers. The city’s large coaching ecosystem ensures a high concentration of the 16-20 student audience S. Chand targeted.
• Ranchi – 1.18x – Jharkhand’s capital showed equal top-tier performance, with podcast and news radio delivery performing particularly strongly – likely driven by higher adult and parent audience concentration in this market.
• Panipat – 1.17x – A strong agricultural and industrial city with a growing student population, Panipat’s Hindi-speaking audience connected well with the vernacular creative variants.
• Hisar – 1.16x – As a Tier-2 Haryana city with significant student migration to coaching centres, Hisar showed strong LTR – particularly in the evening streaming window when students return from coaching.
• Ghaziabad – 1.16x – Ghaziabad’s position in the Delhi-NCR ecosystem means its student audience mirrors Faridabad and Gurugram in digital media behaviour, with strong music streaming habits driving solid completion rates.
• Varanasi – 1.16x – India’s cultural heartland showed consistent LTR performance, with Hindi-language creative and podcast delivery into older audiences performing particularly well.
• Patna – 1.16x – Bihar’s capital is one of India’s most competitive exam preparation cities – home to a vast student population preparing for UPSC, BPSC, and engineering entrances. Podcast platform delivery into news-consuming adults drove strong completion here.
• Kanpur – 1.15x – UP’s largest industrial city showed steady LTR performance. The student segment’s evening streaming behaviour drove consistent completion rates across the campaign period.
• Agra – 1.15x – While showing the lowest uplift in the set, Agra still delivered above-benchmark LTR – confirming the campaign’s regional strength and Paytunes’ ability to maintain performance in smaller Tier-2 markets.

Why Audio Outperforms for Education Brands: S. Chand’s Listener Retention Insight

• Audio is the only format that follows the student’s day: From commuting to coaching, studying at home, and winding down at night – in-stream audio accompanies the academic lifestyle in a way display and video ads cannot.
• LTR at 1.17x proves creative-audience alignment: A listen-through rate meaningfully above benchmark confirms that S. Chand’s messaging resonated with listeners – they did not skip, mute, or switch away.
• Two audiences, two platforms, one campaign: The ability to reach students on music platforms and parents on news podcasts within a single unified buy is a structural advantage of audio advertising that S. Chand should systematically leverage.
• Multi-script rotation prevents fatigue: Deploying three distinct creative variants across 30 days maintained listener attention and prevented the drop in LTR that typically occurs when a single audio spot is repeated too frequently.
• Retargeting amplified LTR: Audiences retargeted via AC4, AC5, AC6 showed stronger listen-through behaviour – prior category exposure creates an audio receptivity effect worth planning for in future campaigns.
• North India’s Tier-2 cities are audio-ready: Panipat, Hisar, Karnal, Kanpur, and Varanasi all delivered above 1.15x LTR – demonstrating that digital audio effectiveness extends well beyond metro markets in the education vertical.
• CTR context: The below-benchmark CTR (0.83x) is not a performance failure – audio campaigns build brand familiarity and message recall, which translates to downstream purchase intent rather than immediate click action. This is normal and expected for audio-first brand campaigns.

Managing a 12-City, Dual-Audience, Multi-Platform Campaign Across a 30-Day Academic Sprint

• Dual-audience creative complexity: Creating distinct audio scripts for a 16-20 student segment and a 40+ parent segment – without producing a brand-inconsistent experience – required careful creative direction and clear briefing on tone differentiation.
• Geographic distribution at scale: Running simultaneous targeted campaigns across 12 cities in four states required precise impression allocation to ensure no city was under- or over-served relative to its strategic priority.
• Platform pacing management: With 13+ platforms delivering simultaneously, ensuring even pacing and avoiding early campaign exhaustion in high-demand cities required active daily monitoring via the real-time dashboard.
• Retargeting integration timeline: Activating the AC4, AC5, AC6 retargeting segments on 24th February – three days after campaign launch – required coordination to ensure no impression wastage or audience overlap during the transition period.
• CTR optimisation: Click-through rate came in below benchmark, which is consistent with audio-first campaigns. Future campaign briefs should include a companion banner creative optimisation phase to improve click-to-display conversion from the banner unit.
• 30-day duration management: Maintaining creative freshness and listener attention across a full calendar month required the three-script rotation strategy – without which LTR would typically decline in the second and third week of a sustained audio campaign.

Exam Season Sequencing, Deepened Vernacular Creative, and Video-to-Audio Retargeting: S. Chand’s Next Audio Chapter

• Exam calendar alignment: Plan future campaigns around key North India exam cycles – Board season (Feb-March), JEE/NEET preparation windows (Oct-December), and UPSC notification periods. Audio reach during high-stress pre-exam periods commands greater listener attention and brand recall.
• Deepen Hindi-language creative: The strong LTR performance in Tier-2 markets (Varanasi, Patna, Ranchi, Kanpur) suggests further investment in Hindi-only, colloquial creative variants could drive even stronger results in vernacular-first cities.
• Extend retargeting strategy: Introduce retargeting from Day 1 to maximise the LTR uplift that the retargeted audience consistently delivers. Build a persistent audio retargeting pool of education-category listeners for activation across future S. Chand campaigns.
• Companion banner creative testing: To address the below-benchmark CTR, A/B test companion banner designs – including direct CTA variants (“Download the S. Chand app”, “Find your coaching centre”) – to improve the click-to-listen conversion from the display unit.
• Expand geographic footprint: Consider adding Allahabad (Prayagraj), Meerut, and Jaipur in future runs – high-density exam preparation cities that fall within S. Chand’s North India academic geography and likely have comparable audio audience profiles.
• Increase campaign duration for bigger brand moments: A 45-60 day campaign around Boards season would allow deeper frequency building with the parent segment and enable more comprehensive Brand Lift Study measurement via Happydemics.
• Podcast-first format for brand authority: Commission a short-form branded audio content series (e.g., “S. Chand Study Tip of the Day” – 60 seconds) for distribution across PocketFM, Aaj Tak, and Jagran to build owned audio presence alongside paid in-stream advertising.

Why Education Brands Can’t Afford to Be Unheard in a Distracted Learning World: A Paytunes Perspective

We live in a world where the average human attention span has shortened to under 8 seconds for most digital formats. For education brands, this creates a particular paradox: the audience you’re trying to reach – students preparing for exams – is simultaneously the most digitally engaged and the most advertising-fatigued demographic in India today. They use ad blockers. They swipe past display banners without a second glance. They skip video ads before the 5-second mark. And yet – they listen. For hours every day. In-stream audio meets them in the one channel where their guard is down and their attention, however briefly, is yours.

Your Education Brand Has 30 Seconds to Speak to a Student Who’s Already Seen 300 Ads Today

Banner ads are the background noise of the internet. Studies consistently show that display ads receive 2-3 seconds of average visual attention – and most of that time is involuntary, peripheral, and non-recalled. For an education brand like S. Chand, where the message needs to convey trust, authority, and relevance, a banner simply cannot do the job.

Short-form video performs better on attention metrics but suffers from the skip-reflex problem. Most students have trained themselves to swipe or skip within 3 seconds. If your brand story requires more than a single visual frame to land – and education brands always require more – short video is structurally unsuitable for the full-funnel brand work you need to do.

In-stream audio is structurally different. A listener cannot swipe past an audio ad. They cannot scroll through it. In Spotify’s ad-supported tier and across JioSaavn’s free platform, the audio plays – fully, attentively, and in a listening environment the user has chosen and engaged with. S. Chand’s 30-second audio spot reached listeners in exactly this way.

Why S. Chand’s 30-Second In-Stream Audio Delivered 1.17x Above Industry LTR

Chand deployed in-stream audio spots of up to 30 seconds across 13+ platforms – a format that benefits from what researchers in attention economics call ‘forced exposure with contextual relevance.’ Unlike display or video, audio does not compete with the screen. It accompanies it. A student listening to music while revising is not choosing between the ad and their content – they’re receiving both.

 

Attention Economy Benchmarks (per 100 exposures):

Platform/Format	Avg. Attention (seconds)	Completion Rate (per 100)	Audio Attention Uplift
Banner/Display Ads	2-3	12-18	4-8x lower than audio
Short Video (Reels)	5-9	18-25	3-4x lower
Full Video (In-Stream)	7-10	15-25	3-5x lower
Audio (20s/30s spot)	18 or more	70-95	1.17x higher

 

• Banner ads are rarely noticed long enough to reinforce a message, leading to weak recall.
• Short-form video and reels offer a slightly longer window but are quickly dismissed with a swipe.
• 30-second digital audio ads command undistracted, multitasking-friendly attention, leading to 70-95 more completion events per 100 impressions than most display or short video placements.

Conclusion

Chand’s 30-day North India audio campaign demonstrated what becomes possible when a trusted education brand deploys high-attention, multi-platform audio advertising with precision audience targeting and creative rotation. A 1.17x listen-through rate above benchmark, near-perfect impression delivery across 12 cities and 13+ platforms, and consistent above-benchmark LTR performance in both metro and Tier-2 markets prove that audio is not just a supplementary format for education advertisers – it is a primary brand-building channel that reaches students and parents where they already spend their most receptive listening hours. The campaign established a replicable, scalable model for S. Chand’s future audio activity that can be deepened with vernacular creative, extended with exam-calendar sequencing, and broadened with podcast-first content strategies.

If you want your brand to achieve similar impact through high-attention audio experiences, partner with Paytunes and start building meaningful listener connections today.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: What made the 1.17x Listen-Through Rate (LTR) result significant, and how did it compare to industry benchmarks?

The 1.17x Listen-Through Rate (LTR) was a standout result because it was achieved consistently across all 13+ platforms and across both metro cities and Tier-2 markets like Karnal and Meerut – not just on premium platforms where audiences tend to be more engaged. In the digital audio industry, an LTR at or above 1.0x benchmark is considered a success; S. Chand’s campaign exceeded this threshold, indicating that listeners were completing the 30-second in-stream spots at a higher rate than the category average. This was attributed to the relevance of the message during exam season, the use of three rotating creative scripts that prevented listener fatigue, and the precise targeting of students and parents during their highest-attention listening windows – such as morning study hours and late-night revision sessions.

 

Q2: How did Paytunes manage to effectively target two very different audiences – students and parents – within the same campaign?

Paytunes addressed the dual-audience challenge through a combination of age-specific creative scripting and platform-based audience segmentation. For students aged 16-20, audio spots focused on exam preparation confidence, study material quality, and the competitive edge that S. Chand resources provide – delivered during late-night and early-morning listening sessions on Spotify, JioSaavn, and YouTube Music. For parents aged 40+, separate script variants emphasised reliability, academic outcomes, and investment in their child’s future – delivered on platforms with broader adult listenership, including podcast networks and news radio apps like Aaj Tak, Jagran, and Money Control Podcast. This meant the campaign never required parents and students to hear the same message; each audience received creative that spoke directly to their motivations, resulting in high relevance scores and strong listener retention across both segments.