2026 FIFA World Cup Marketing Campaigns: Ads, Stunts & OOH

Heinz seized the moment

Levi's found the loophole first. Not that it’s a competition...

FIFA demanded brands cover any non-tournament branding outside the stadiums, so Levi's stuck a plain white sticker over their logo. Didn't matter. Luckily for the brand, its silhouette's too iconic and it remained instantly recognisable. In fact, became more viral and talked about than ever.

Heinz clocked its rise to fame and wanted a piece. Heinz condiments sit on almost every stadium table, so they taped over their own branding too. Taking it a step further, they launched Unofficial Stadium Ketchup with a blacked-out label and strapline, and released a limited-edition run of censored bottles.

Yeah, this was funny, but alone would it have carried Heinz’s virality through the month-long tournament? Probably not. For the final stretch, they went after a true fan gripe: condiment packets never have enough sauce in them. The fix borrowed one of football's most recognisable symbols, red and yellow cards, and turned it into Heinz Penalty Packets. Oversized ketchup and mustard, obviously.

HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTERS! Or, epic adverts

Nike's Rip the Script. Adidas' Backyard Legends. Lay's The Epic Watch Party. Someone got Hollywood on the phone!

Oh, and Paddy Power convinced Danny Dyer and Rob Lowe to share a campaign. Some would argue Danny Dyer doesn't carry quite the same cultural weight as Bad Bunny, Ronaldo or Timothée Chalamet. But it really depends on who you ask.

Nobody was cutting corners on budget. Adidas' campaign reportedly ran close to $50 million; we couldn't find Nike's figure, but we'd bet it's in the same tax bracket. Either way, both have made it back tenfold. Nike's Rip The Script became the most shared post in the brand's history despite having zero official tournament rights. Fair flippin’ play.

Whether you were team Adidas or Team Nike, everyone involved is doing just fine.

LEGO reminding us who football is really for

Lego brought together a famous football four, building individual minifigures of Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé and Vinícius Jr. The iconic quartet were filmed assembling a brick World Cup trophy, before one final builder stepped in to finish the job.

A child.

It’s a small moment, but it makes the campaign all warm and fuzzy.

Hand the finishing touch to a kid instead of the four best players on the planet, and the story stops being about Lego, or Messi, or Ronaldo. It becomes about every kid watching. Viewers get a nostalgic sense of what football meant to them at that age, and how they would have felt meeting their hero.

The post social reached 314 million views across the players’ accounts within 24 hours, 180 million of those from Messi alone.

Air Transat let the numbers do the arguing

Air Transat's answer to eye-watering match ticket prices: show people what else that money buys.
Their Tickets-Tickets campaign set the price of a single match ticket against the price of a flight to the country you're cheering for, and let the maths make the point.

No sponsorship logos, no tournament branding, no forced tie-in. Just a live, reactive idea built to sit naturally inside a conversation fans were already having. Go to the match, or go to the country. Simple, current, and it didn't need FIFA sign-off.

Personally, get me on that flight.

IKEA’s turning the everyday into everywhere

IKEA Canada and Dentsu Creative turned 18 competing nations into flags made entirely from IKEA stock - sofas, plush toys, lighting, throws - each styled to replicate a competing country’s flag, and all fully shoppable from the image. Two sofas and a stuffed octopus = Argentina. And a red, fluffy blanket became Canada's maple leaf.

It works because it turns something most people watch passively into something IKEA's audience actively does… spot it, click it, buy it. Add out-of-home near stores and the campaign catches people twice: once on their phone, once on their commute.

No mention of football, stadiums, or players. Literally just the product.

It’s recognisable, playful and most of all, endearing.

Erling Haaland. That’s the sentence.

Honestly, who's the real winner of the World Cup? Erling. Erling Haaland.

Everything he touches is turning to gold. Aside from that ball. Sorry, Norway.

But anyway, he’s personal branding has skyrocketed this past month. He’s gained over 20 million followers since kick-off, an old rap song he recorded as a teen is now at Number 1 on Spotify in Norway, and a Russian model who went viral for being his doppelganger is now also landing big-bucks brand deals.

His Hermès collection alone could probably outvalue most people's entire worldly possessions combined, and some American influencers have taken to calling him "The People's Princess". We're staying well out of that one.

You cannot open social media without a reference, an image, a video, or a meme. Absolutely anything to do with Haaland. And we love it!

Whatever's happening on the pitch, off the pitch, Haaland's the one actually winning.

‍

It’s clear to see the biggest World Cup winners aside from the winning nation are absolutely marketing departments worldwide. From taped-over ketchup bottles to flat-pack flags, the brands willing to move fast and have a laugh are the ones getting the shares. Official sponsor or not.

‍