NEW YORK — For many digital publishers, the NewFronts serve as a valuable opportunity to pitch brands and agencies on the latest in their advertising and content innovations. For TikTok, the annual series of presentations has repeatedly become a vehicle to send a simple message: It isn’t going anywhere.
After weathering not one, but two protracted U.S. ban attempts, TikTok on Tuesday evening signaled that there would be more stability — and greater things to come — for advertising partners moving forward, including richer and higher-impact storytelling formats.
“What’s standing here today, I am genuinely proud to say, is the strongest, most secure, most creative platform we have ever built,” said Khartoon Weiss, vice president and general manager of global business solutions at TikTok, during the showcase, which is part of a weeklong set of programming organized by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
TikTok kicked off its 2026 NewFront by detailing a two-month-old U.S. joint venture led by CEO Adam Presser, who joined Weiss on stage to reinforce a mandate that he says gives the platform greater independence while preserving the user experience to which brands and consumers are accustomed.
ByteDance, the Chinese developer behind TikTok, in January agreed to a deal to divest a majority of the app’s U.S. ownership to American investors, Oracle among them. Under terms of the deal, Oracle is also handling TikTok’s critical cloud-computing duties, such as data protections, an area of nationality security concern when the platform was under Chinese ownership.
The transition hasn’t been without its bumps, including technical hiccups, controversial data-collection policy changes and even allegations of censorship — claims the company has denied — but reassurance was the major theme underpinning the NewFronts.
“This is structure, partnership, safety, long-term growth, all specifically built for the U.S., in the U.S., by the U.S.,” said Weiss, who described the platform as entering a “bigger” and “bolder” new chapter through the USDS joint venture.
What’s new, ads-wise
There were, of course, several advertising announcements at the NewFronts, delivered with gusto by emcee Lilly Singh, an actress and entertainer, and the aid of comedic videos parodying genres like nature documentaries. TikTok primarily focused on three new products for the roadshow: Logo Takeovers, Prime Time and Pulse Tastemakers.
Logo Takeovers led the lineup as the most eye-catching format. The offering allows advertisers to surface immediately when the user opens the app as a co-branded placement with the TikTok logo. Warner Bros. recently leveraged the product to hype up the trailer release for its upcoming blockbuster “Supergirl,” driving double-digit bumps to brand awareness and intent, though specific figures for the campaign’s performance were not shared.
“Moviegoers are on TikTok, and as we build enthusiasm ahead of the release of ‘Supergirl,’ coming to theaters this June, we’re pursuing creative ways to engage directly with audiences,” said Dana Nussbaum, co-head of global motion picture marketing at Warner Bros., in a press statement. “We’re thrilled to be the first to have success with TikTok’s Logo Takeover and look forward to continuing our partnership.”
Warner Bros. plans to merge with Paramount Skydance, which is run by David Ellison. TikTok’s U.S. data storage partner and investor Oracle is led by David Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison. Paramount Pictures also was used as an example of a brand leveraging TikTok to promote new film releases at the NewFronts, with a video showcasing a campaign for last year’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.”
TikTok at the NewFronts also unveiled Prime Time, a way for brands to buy ads sequentially, serving three distinct spots over the course of 15 minutes of scrolling. The idea is to allow brands to weave together a longer story and capitalize on tentpole cultural events. The CEO press conference at the start of the talk pointed to TikTok’s role as a major second screen for the recent Super Bowl and Oscars broadcasts.
TikTok then leaned into romance tropes to debut Pulse Tastemakers, which aligns brands with eligible creators and aids them in developing stronger associations with those creators’ communities. Tastemakers is part of the Pulse suite of advertising solutions, which is also expanding to include a Pulse Mentions tool for tapping into bubbling conversations among users around a brand and its category. Separately, TikTok recently teamed with Tubi on a program where the app will identify rising creators to develop original scripted and unscripted series for the Fox-owned streaming platform.
In addition, TikTok is combining two existing ad formats, TopView and TopFeed, into a single media buy focused on maximizing reach, according to a press release. TopView is the first ad that users encounter when they open the TikTok app while TopFeed is the first spot to appear in the For You feed.
Taken together, these changes are meant to provide advertisers with a more engaging and modern experience than they can get elsewhere in the digital ecosystem, Weiss explained at the close of the show.
“What we’re welcoming you and your audiences to do is to lean in from a very leaned back media-historical space,” said Weiss. “We’re going to try to move this business from a programmed, average demographic media-buying behavior to deeply personalized targeting built just for you and in your For You feed.”
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