Premium mobile advertising agency 4th Screen Advertising has secured an exclusive mobile advertising contract with Global Radio, the UK’s largest commercial radio group.

4th Screen will be selling its iSlide expandable and carousel advertising banners, as well as pre-roll audio ads and complete sponsorship deals across the entire Global Radio portfolio, which includes the Heart and Galaxy networks, Classic FM, Capital FM and LBC. Initially, advertising will be available on iPhone, with a planned roll-out across the iPad, Blackberry, Android and Ovi platforms at a later date. Given the distinct demographics of each radio brand, advertisers are also able to target ads according to  region, age and music tastes.

Global Radio currently leads the smartphone radio market, serving over 3m listeners in April, an increase of 500 per cent over the past 6 months. Currently, Global Radio has five of its brands in the top 25 iTunes free music app chart. 4th Screen says the Global Radio deal strengthens its recently-announced Engagement Network, a platform which gives publishers access to deep engagement tools, including advanced mobile ad formats, targeting techniques and engagement tracking.

Amy Copeland, interactive commercial director for Global Radio, says: “Uniquely, radio applications represent a potent channel for brands and advertisers to reach a highly-segmented and receptive audience. Global Radio has completed the deal with 4th Screen Advertising because it showed clear technology leadership and, in particular, the team were able to pull together a bespoke solution that covered our specific requirements.”