EMI is to provide music videos to mobile phones for free from artists including Robbie Williams in a trial with T-Mobile.

The UK trial, conducted in conjunction with mobile advertising company Rhythm NewMedia, will be funded by advertising.

Major brands including Coca-Cola, General Motors, Gillette, Land Rover, Microsoft, Nike and Toyota have signed up for the trial.

Television-style advertising will be embedded with the videos, so when a user selects a video it will be packaged and streamed with a specifically targeted advertisement.

"We see mobile as the key emerging platform to address many of the shortcomings of traditional media today," said. Tony Kypreos, the executive vice-president of business development and innovation at T-Mobile International.

He described music content as of "high appeal" to T-Mobile customers and "an important part of our future advertising offering".

Mr Kypreos said 2006 was the year of "evaluating consumer acceptance and the advertising effectiveness of the mobile medium", and the service would be rolled out globally next year.

The trial will only include music videos from EMI UK artists, which include Lily Allen, Gorillaz and The Kooks.

It is the third major new media deal EMI has struck in as many weeks, as the world's largest independent record company looks to deliver its content over new channels.

Last month, it struck a deal with Microsoft to pre-load music videos on to Microsoft's Zune media player, the company's soon-to-launch "iPod killer".

And last week, EMI Music Publishing struck a deal with SpiralFrog, the music download service that aims to challenge Apple's iTunes by giving away music for free funded by advertising.

"We are experimenting with a number of new and exciting business models to fulfil demand while at the same time ensuring that artists are fully compensated for their work," said Tony Wadsworth, the chairman and chief executive of EMI Music UK & Ireland.

"The advertising-supported model is generating a lot of interest and we think we will learn more about what fans want from mobile music in this trial."

EMI kicked off a similar trial in the US in April.

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