Airtel enters ad tech sector with new firm

Bharti Airtel on Wednesday marked its entry into advertising business with launch of 'Airtel Ads', a move it said will enable brands to pitch consent-based and privacy-safe campaigns to over 320 million customers across its various businesses like mobile, DTH and homes.

Airtel Ads -- that underlines the company's efforts to get a foothold in the booming Indian advertising industry -- leverages the company's data science capabilities, and would enable brands to create deep engagement and high-impact campaigns for most relevant customer cohorts.

Airtel asserted that its customers would receive only the most-relevant brand offerings, and not unwanted spam.

"We are not in the quantity mode, we only want to bring it to customers who care. Therefore, volumes may be less but quality will be high," Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer at Bharti Airtel said.

While the company would look to make connections between customer preference and brand relevance, it would not "hit customers with ads that do not make sense" nor "profile" its user.