TikTok is extending its “Out of Phone” advertising program with six new partners across the UK, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy, while separately launching a Substack newsletter aimed at teaching creators how to build an audience on TikTok LIVE.

Ad Placements Move Off the App

The “Out of Phone” program, which launched in 2023, places TikTok creator content on physical screens outside the app. The new partners are Alight Media, DooH it, Powerpill, Zoom Media, Next-Gen Media and C-Screens, and TikTok says they will display organic creator content in gyms, shopping centers, bars, supermarkets, universities and taxis. The expansion also gives advertisers the ability to sponsor that content or extend existing TikTok ad campaigns onto the new screens.

Alight Media will carry the content across more than 4,500 digital screens in over 1,000 UK venues through its Dwell network. Zoom Media will run it on its “livegood” fitness-channel screens, which it says reach more than 500 gyms and over 4 million monthly viewers in the UK. Next-Gen Media will place it across more than 500 screens in UK and Irish university and student housing environments, which it says generate more than 16 million daily impressions. In France, Belgium and Spain, DooH it will show the content in taxis through its DigiCab network, which it says uses AI to measure viewer attention. In Italy, Powerpill will run it on the screens of its phone-charging stations; the company said the program has produced a 17 percent average increase in engagement and dwell time at its totems and that it has more than 150 active screens.

“We created ‘Out of Phone’ to bring the creativity and joy of TikTok off platform and into the real world,” said Jade Walton, TikTok’s Director of Business Development for Global Media and Licensing Partnerships. “These new partnerships will unlock exciting opportunities for advertisers to align with TikTok communities.”

Teaching Creators to Go Live

TikTok also introduced “The Creator’s Cut,” a newsletter published on Substack that will feature TikTok LIVE creators writing about how they built their audiences. The company said the newsletter launched alongside its Community Fest event and will rotate between creators sharing their own stories and notes from TikTok on livestreaming moments worth watching.

TikTok said more than 250 million creators went live on the platform globally in 2025, and more than 150 million earned rewards for doing so. In its announcement, the company framed the format’s appeal and its difficulty in the same terms: “There’s no playback, no second take, and no way to know exactly what’s going to happen next, which is part of the magic. But it also means you need to know when to tune in, and who to tune into.”

According to Tubefilter, TikTok’s move follows a pattern among platforms of using owned editorial channels to communicate directly with creators, pointing to YouTube’s “Creator Insider” channel and Twitch’s “Patch Notes” podcast as comparable efforts. Tubefilter also linked the newsletter to TikTok’s broader communications turnaround since the 2023 arrival of former Disney executive Zenia Mucha.

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