O2 UK has launched a new mobile advertising service, following the conclusion of its “successful” trial involving 500,000 customers in 2007. The new service will appear on the operator’s portal O2 Active and include both display advertising and ad-funded content models—such as games and video--targeted at specific audiences.

Baner ads in last year’s trial generated a 6 percent click through rate, while 16 million page impressions were generated on O2 Active. The trial tested 30 different advertising campaigns from brands such as Honda, Nivea and Yell.

O2’s new service will provide advertisers with more targeting possibilities, including behavioural, demographic, geographic and channel based targeting. For example, subscribers who have signed up for football alerts will be considered as part of the football demographic. Geographic targeting will allow advertisers to target particular areas with promotions; luxury brands could target advertising to affluent areas for instance.

Meanwhile, O2 has appointed mobile advertising agency 4th Screen to sell its inventory.

• UK Operators To Develop Common Standards For Measuring Mobile Ads