On 25 August 2026, TikTok announced six new partners for Out of Phone, the programme that places TikTok videos on screens outside the app. The additions cover the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy — the first time the programme has been expanded on this scale in Europe rather than in the United States.
The partners are Alight Media, DooH it, Powerpill, Zoom Media, Next-Gen Media and C-Screens. Between them they run screens in pubs and bars, taxis, supermarkets and DIY stores, gyms, universities and student housing. Social Media Today and MediaPost carried the news the same week; eMarketer framed it as TikTok extending “brands’ best content offline”.
For social media teams, Out of Phone is not a new ad format so much as a new destination for content you already make — and that destination has rules of its own.
What Out of Phone is
TikTok launched Out of Phone on 17 October 2023 as its out-of-home offer: a way to take TikTok content onto billboards, cinema pre-shows, retail screens and venue TVs. Dan Page, then TikTok’s Global Head of Distribution for New Screens, summed it up at launch: “With Out of Phone, we’re taking TikTok beyond the palm of our hands and into everyday life.”
Expansion since then has been steady but largely American: Curb’s Taxi TV network, Westfield malls, Rockbot and Hope Hydration in July 2025, then programmatic platform Vistar Media in May 2026. In Europe, C-Screens first joined in July 2024 and Alight Media announced its own participation on 9 June 2026. The 25 August post pulls these together with four fresh partners into a single European push.
Who is on the new list, and where
The TikTok Newsroom post gives partner-by-partner detail. The figures below are TikTok’s and the partners’ own; we have not verified them independently.
- Alight Media (UK). More than 4,500 screens across 1,000-plus venues on its Dwell network — pubs, bars and workplaces. Alight’s June release described the network as 4,700 full-motion screens in 1,200 social venues, carrying TikTok content in categories such as beauty, DIY, food, fashion, pets, sport and travel.
- DooH it (France, Belgium, Spain). In-taxi screens through its DigiCab network. Founder and CEO Mikael Bes said the aim is “transforming travel time into moments of genuine discovery”.
- Powerpill (Italy). More than 150 screens on charging totems in supermarkets, DIY retailers, shopping centres, gyms and ports. CEO Federico Della Rocca reports “a 17% average increase in both engagement and dwell time at our totems” since running TikTok content. That is a partner’s own measurement, with no methodology published.
- Zoom Media (UK). More than 500 screens in gyms and fitness centres, which the partner says reach over four million viewers a month.
- Next-Gen Media (UK and Ireland). More than 500 screens across 75-plus towns and cities, in universities, student accommodation and other educational spaces.
- C-Screens (UK). High-footfall venues on its TV-out-of-home network, continuing a partnership that began in 2024.
What runs on these screens, by TikTok’s description, is organic creator content — the platform curating videos for the environment. Jade Walton, TikTok’s Director of Business Development for Global Media and Licensing Partnerships, put the intent plainly: “We created Out of Phone to bring the creativity and joy of TikTok off platform and into the real world.”
How brands get in
The announcement names two routes for advertisers: content sponsorships, and what TikTok calls its ad extension product, “where TikTok advertisers can extend their TikTok creator content off platform and on DOOH”.
Neither is self-serve. TikTok’s Help Center sets out the process: confirm brand and industry eligibility with your TikTok sales representative, submit goals, locations, budget, timeline and on-platform strategy, and expect a customised proposal within five to seven business days. After the insertion order is signed, TikTok asks for three to four weeks before launch, or six to eight for retail pop-ups.
The creative guidelines are the part most teams will underestimate. Out of Phone screens are mostly sound-off, so TikTok tells advertisers to use captions or subtitles and high-contrast visuals. For billboards it recommends 10 to 15 seconds or less. It wants a simple call to action pointing back to the brand’s TikTok profile or a branded landing page, and every piece passes review by TikTok’s Global Media & Licensing Partnerships team and its Ad Policy team before it airs.
Why TikTok is doing this now
Out-of-home is one of the few traditional channels still growing, and the growth is digital: eMarketer’s write-up of the announcement cites DOOH at 36.3% of total out-of-home revenue in 2025, up 10.5% year on year. For TikTok, venue screens are inventory it does not have to build, reaching people at moments the phone does not: in a taxi, in a gym, in a supermarket queue.
For the screen owners, TikTok supplies something they struggle to source: a constant feed of short, watchable content that people already recognise. The partners get programming; TikTok gets presence; the advertiser is asked to pay for the bridge between them.
What it means for your business
If you advertise on TikTok in these five countries, you now have an offline extension to ask about. The ad extension product takes creator content you have already paid for and puts it on physical screens. Ask your TikTok representative which of the six networks fits your audience — a student-housing network and a pub network are not the same buy — and get the proposal in writing with placements, flight dates and pricing before you commit.
Brief for sound-off from the first frame. The main reason TikTok content fails on a venue screen is that it was built for earbuds. Captions burned into the video, the product visible early, no dependency on a trending sound. If your creators already deliver this, Out of Phone costs nothing extra in production.
Check the rights before the content leaves the app. Off-platform use is a different licence from an in-feed post. Before any creator video goes on a screen in a supermarket in Milan, confirm that your agreement with that creator covers out-of-home display, for how long, and in which countries. TikTok’s process reviews the creative; it does not review your contract.
Treat partner performance figures as claims, not forecasts. A 17% lift reported by a network selling that very network is a data point to ask about, not a number for your plan. Agree up front how the campaign will be measured — brand-lift study, promo-code redemption, profile-visit uplift during the flight — because the screens report impressions, not outcomes.
Plan it as social and media together. The content is social; the buying, scheduling and measurement are media. Out of Phone pays off where the social media team and the media buyer plan the flight jointly, rather than the social team discovering after the fact that a video built for sound is playing silently over a gym treadmill.
We expect Out of Phone to grow in Europe the way it did in the US: partner by partner, country by country, with the same handful of creative rules each time. Brands whose TikTok content already works without sound will find the channel ready for them. Everyone else has a content problem to solve first — and it is cheaper to fix in the edit than on a billboard.
