Umamagesshwari Maruthapan
Business-giant Bharti Airtel steps into digital advertising business worth $10 Billion. “Airtel Ads allows brands of all sizes to curate consent based and privacy safe campaigns to one of the biggest pools of quality customers in India,” said Bharti Airtel through its statement on 24th February 2021.
The beta testing of the Airtel Ads platform chalked up nearly Rs. 100 Crore in annualized revenue with around 8 billion monthly impressions. The launch saw participation of more than 100 brands.
At present, the advertising business is worthy of $10 billion. Adarsh Nair, Airtel’s chief product officer, expects it to rise to about $19 billion. Digital advertising, which currently accounts for $2 billion, is also expected to rise to $8 billion.
According to Nair, the company will leverage its 320 million users across various platforms and apps such as Airtel DTH, Airtel Thanks app, Airtel Xstream, Wynk Music, and also Airtel retail points.
Airtel clarified that it would advertise only relevant brand offerings and also assured of securing people’s right to privacy by not sharing any customer details with intermediaries.
“An Airtel user on Wynk, for instance, will see an ad based on the deep data learning of the customer’s spending pattern. The customer will then be asked whether she/he would like to know more and, if yes, then the customer will be directed to a new page. Now, because there won’t be a third-party system/intermediary involved, the entire journey of directing the customer from the Wynk app till the ad will be controlled by Airtel and this will lead to complete control over customer data,” Nair said.