THE OTHER WORLD CUP
A Non-Football Fan's Guide to the World Cup Brand Game
Yes, this is a surprising turn of events.
I'll be honest, football isn't really my thing. But branding during a global event? That's a cultural opportunity I can get behind.
When the whole world is watching, a tournament of this scale becomes something more than sport. It becomes a rare moment of shared excitement, inclusion and unity. And that's when the really interesting brand stories start to happen.
Not necessarily from the obvious places.
These are the brands I think are winning the World Cup. Not because they understood the football (because I certainly don't) but because they understood the moment.
LEVI'S - Hidden in Plain Sight
If there was an award for the biggest cover-up at this World Cup, Levi's would win it.
FIFA wanted the Levi's logo scrubbed from Levi's Stadium in California. So Levi's did as it was told. And covered up the logo with a giant billowing tarp.
Shaped like the Levi's logo.
Yes, it was technically covered. But you've got to hand it to the Levi's team. It was a genius move.
The Levi’s Stadium. With its branding redacted.
‘Levi's didn't just comply with FIFA. They outplayed them’
The brand also changed its Instagram profile to match. And if that wasn't enough, they jumped on the 'Nobody's Gonna Know' trend, a viral audio meme built around the gleeful confidence of getting away with something, with a reel of their de-branded stadium captioned with: Welcoming the world to the beautiful (redacted) stadium!
You only have to spend a few minutes in the comments to see how much people loved it.
The response was immediate and substantial. At the 24-hour mark, the post had attracted more than a million interactions, including over 170,000 shares. Those are the kind of figures most brand accounts can only dream of. People weren't just liking it, they were sending it to everyone they knew.
Because, let's be honest, you didn't need to care about football to appreciate it.
What started as a forced cover-up became one of the most talked-about brand moments of the tournament so far.
AIRBNB - THE WORLD IS MEANT TO MEET
The World Cup is about supporting your country, or maybe the team you drew in the office sweepstake. The tournament is fuelled by patriotism. Which is exactly why Airbnb feels like such an unexpected hero here.
The brand is, in fact, an official World Cup sponsor. But they’re showing up in a way I’ve not really seen before.
In their recognisable style, a video built from still photographs, their campaign The World is Meant to Meet is beautifully surprising. So much so I actually stopped cooking dinner to watch it.
It celebrates the cultures that collide during the World Cup, and the unexpected stories that come from them. Like how Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was born when Japanese judo travelled to Brazil. Or how Jamaican sound systems helped shape the birth of UK punk.
It moves between countries and eras using archival imagery and World Cup moments in a montage-style flow, stitching together a story of cultural exchange.
It ends with: ‘And this is what the world gets when 48 nations meet to play one beautiful game.’
It’s simple. Elegant. And very distinctly Airbnb.
Because cultures don't just meet at a World Cup. They've been borrowing, blending and building on each other for decades. Airbnb simply found a beautiful way to remind us of that.
And for those wondering, my World Cup sweepstake team is England. (No, I'm not prepared to swap.)
THE PINK BOOT CONSPIRACY
Now this one surprised me. Mainly because I had to watch a few minutes of football to realise it was even a thing.
Not the score. Not the players. The boots.
Everywhere I looked, fluorescent pink boots.
I'd assumed it was a sponsorship thing. One brand trying to dominate the pitch. But after a bit of digging, I discovered something unexpected. Nike had pink boots. Adidas had pink boots. Puma had pink boots. Pretty much everyone had pink boots.
It turns out the biggest brands in football have all arrived at the same conclusion. If you're trying to stand out on the world's biggest stage, subtlety probably isn't the answer.
And maybe that's what fascinates me about the World Cup. Even when the brands are competing against each other, they're still responding to the same cultural forces.
Or perhaps I just can't stop looking at the pink boots. BRB. Gone shopping.
The World Cup Showtime Pack from Puma.
IN CLOSING
The World Cup is never just about football. It's about the cultural moment. And the brands that understand that are the ones that find their way into your feed, your conversation, and apparently your shopping basket.
Right now, that moment is the real game.
