Airtel enters the advertising business, launches Airtel Ads

It aims to capture the Indian advertising industry which is expected to grow to USD 19 billion by 2025 from the current USD 10 billion.

Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunication services company has announced its entry into the advertising business. It has launched Airtel Ads, a brand engagement solution.

The solution will allow brands of all sizes to curate consent-based and privacy safe campaigns to one of the biggest pool of quality customers in India – Airtel’s 320+ million customers across its “Mobile, DTH and Homes” businesses.

Airtel claimed its mobile customers have the highest average monthly data consumption at 16.8 GB and the highest monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 166 and its fast-growing DTH and Homes networks serve premium households across the country.

Airtel Ads allows brands to create high engagement and high impact campaigns to the most relevant customer cohorts. This also means that Airtel customers receive only the most relevant brand offerings and not unwanted spam.

Adarsh Nair, chief product officer, Bharti Airtel: “Airtel Ads breaks new ground in the USD 10 bn Indian advertising industry. By abstracting Airtel’s unique strengths of quality customers, best-in-class network and world-class digital platforms, Airtel Ads offers innovative channels for brands to reach the right audiences. What truly differentiates Airtel Ads is its razor-sharp focus on quality over quantity and real impact vs vanity metrics.”

“Advertising is an adjacency to our core business of delighting our customers with great services. Therefore, we combine the privacy that is paramount to our customers with the trust and transparency that is vital to the brands we serve.”

During the beta phase, Airtel Ads delivered successful campaigns for over 100 brands across multiple categories – FMCG, BFSI, Digital Startups, et al. Early advertisers include PepsiCo, Zomato, CRED, Tata AIG, Lenskart, Apollo 247, Cars24, Gameskraft, Vahan, Harley Davidson.

Gajendra Jangid, chief marketing officer, Cars 24: “Airtel Ads is a marketer’s delight and offers the most comprehensive set of customer cohorts, including premium. We believe that going forward telco-platforms will emerge as an important platform in the media mix for brands to deliver high-performance campaigns in a digitally connected world.”

“As a brand, we are always on the lookout for more engaging and authentic ways to interact with our customers. With Airtel Ads we were able to build a high level of engagement and traffic on our platform” added Pradyot Ghate, VP - Product and Partnerships, Zomato.

Om Jha, associate director of media at PepsiCo India had this to say, “We have had a great experience of working with Airtel Ads, which brings a fresh perspective to the advertising inventory available to brands in India. Youth is at the core of our brand strategy, and we always look for innovative ways to interact with them. Through Airtel ads, we ran a focus digital campaign on the Wynk music app for the launch of new packs of 7UP and Mirinda. The outcomes of the campaign were really impressive given the customizable ad formats and quality audience base.”