World Cup Ads lack fan depth but show plenty of convention, celebs and goals

Weekly Sports Marketing Creative Showcase 12th June

Jun 12, 2026

Welcome to the first weekly sports marketing creative showcase, where I’ll be highlighting the activity that’s caught my eye over the past week in sports from brand adverts, social media content, OOH, activations and more.

I want this to become an essential newsletter each week for sports marketers and anyone working across sport to have a variety of marketing in one place as inspiration. There will be some commentary on any insights or trends coming through in the work and bigger picture across the category.

On to this week, where we’ll kick-off with a World Cup special that rounds up what I’ve seen across the big brand ads leading up to the tournament, which sees a lot of David Beckham, football vs soccer and some work that truly stirs the emotion.

Conventions

All the hallmarks of football adverts are represented with the classic conventions of national pride, celebrity cameos, slow-motion action, pauses before a special moment, state of the nation manifestos, inspiration journeys and hard work creates the magic. Just because an advert follows convention, it doesn’t mean it’s bad as the execution of that convention becomes more key. At the World Cup we’re talking big production budgets and media spend which I think has made a lot of the big convention following ads feel too glossy. They’re so surface level where the lack of any depth, tension or interesting fan insights means you could swap logos from another brand within the category. You will likely only remember some of the brands because of the sheer volume of product nods and frequency in the media buy, but not much else from the work. A lot of times in categories the conventions are played because the campaigns are reaching such a broad audience and it’s the same at a global tournament. Most of the big players are trying to reach more than just football fans so playing the hits becomes a default, rather than attempting to disrupt the category and stand out.

Football, not soccer

Where the World Cup is being hosted was an obvious one to play on with the football vs soccer language and became a convention of the tournament adverts. I won’t be featuring gambling ads on Vivrant, however one known for their banter and humorous adverts has made one of the more enjoyable ones that does the it’s football, not soccer and English vs US culture very well, featuring Danny Dyer and Rob Lowe.

David Beckham: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Goldenballs has been putting in the work this tournament and it feels like every other advert features him, whether it’s pulling pints for Stella, pushing Pepsi, flogging burgers, looking for crisps, home improvement, surprising telco customers, or rolling back the years for adidas. He’s doing so much that for Lenovo they decided to play up to this with a ‘got a lot going on’ angle. Talent is a tried and tested formula to bring attention and credibility to a brand or product and Brand Beckham is a mega operation, but I do wonder if too much exposure of one person across brands begins to diminish the brand’s communication?

Backyard Legends vs Rip The Script / adidas vs Nike / marketers vs audience

adidas vs Nike is an argument as long as time and a prime target for marketers to weigh in on who won, why one ad is better than the other, or simply why neither worked for them. That last point is important, as it only takes a few moments to get into the comments below on social to see how well both Backyard Legends and Rip The Script have done to appeal to the people the brands are actually wanting to appeal to (it’s not marketers on LinkedIn or writing weekly Substack creative showcase ;-)).

Both are brilliant, epic and what you want to see from the global sportswear giants. I know both have the budgets and talent to do so, but my main takeaway from both is the audience will watch longer form adverts or brand films if you make them entertaining enough. Neither felt long when watching, they kept you hooked to see what would happen next and the final pay off, while both were rewatchable for the easter eggs, things you might have missed first time and simply because they deserved a second watch.

Both brands are in different places right now, adidas further along their turnaround than Nike, but talk of the latter’s demise is foolish given the sheer size of the company and share of the market they still have. They’re still Nike and Rip the Script showed that it was perfect for what the brand needed to do, reminding people of who they’re in football while giving the audience a roll call of talent across a high octane production. For adidas, Backyard Legends continued what their creative work has been doing well for a long time now, weaving performance, sports talent, lifestyle and cultural crossover talent across an ode to the places where everyone starts to create their legend, the streets. It felt like an exclamation point at the end of their World Cup lead up work that saw some of the best kit and apparel product and storytelling around it. Both brands have excelled on kit and cultural collab launch content while Backyard Legends and Rip The Script were reminders that sometimes, you don’t need to pick a winner, just enjoy them both because everyone wins.

How fandom is portrayed

Interesting to see how US brands portray fans. Jim Bean acknowledges fandom happens everywhere, not just in the stadium. While Lay’s tells us the fans who always win are the bandwagon fans and encourage you to switch teams if your’s isn’t winning, then another if they don’t and so on. It comes across as putting the very nature of fandom down, but then it’s also starring Will Ferrell and is all very light hearted in execution. Axe / Lynx exaggerates the rituals and superstitions of football fans for a sign off ‘Smell Your Best When You Look Your Worst’ that just about strays the right side of pastiche. Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Stella are three of the brands that all feature fans heavily in their ads, in moments of joy and despair.

I have to say though, there is a lack of real fan culture and depth of fandom shown across the many ads I’ve seen. Beyond the obligatory fan goal celebrations and mini moments of jeopardy before the highs, there is little in the way that shows any of the tensions, breadth of emotions or different experiences fans have around the game. I felt like there was a real opportunity with this World Cup being its largest ever, to show the melting pot of cultures that are going to come together. We’ve already seen great scenes of fans mixing and celebrating together at the early games. I spoke before about how this World Cup highlights how increasingly more complex and layered fandom is with fans not always supporting one team but where they’re born, grew up, live or where family are from. This is a positive thing and the diaspora stories are what makes football a truly global game and these things should be celebrated. None of this is shown in brand comms which is a shame given the number of global brands who are sponsoring or advertising. A lot of brands say in their ads or supporting press releases and trade interviews that they’re for the fans, but this only seems to mean showing celebration conventions.

Role of product

If you’re a sports brand selling kit, boots or equipment, there’s a natural product link to talk about. For non-endemic brands in sports, you have to work harder to show a natural product fit and earn credibility. Products like food and drink can be easier to show a natural role in the fan experience than other categories like finance or cars.

This World Cup has seen a wide range of how brands are showing product roles, in some instances as the natural accompaniment like Brahma and Uber Eats. Duracell goes for the endurance metaphor with their Lionel Messi ad and Valvoline for those who are ‘driven’. Johnnie Walker has released a 24 year old whisky in Brazil which coincides with the length of time since Brazil last won the World Cup. Something Chivas Regal did with Arsenal recently. I can imagine the calls to the distilleries to see how much whiskey of those ages they had. Some use football vocabulary and gestures to link the product like Visa ‘Tap In’ or Coors use of Andrés Cantor’s legendary “GOOOOAL!” for a bar order. Some have pushed the product so far front and centre it feels over the top, even if the product does naturally appear in the fan experience or they’re a long-standing sponsor. Coca-Cola are one of the longest sponsors but their ‘Uncanned Emotions’ puts football, fans and the occasion secondary to the product.

Personal faves

Big faves for me personally are no surprises, Backyard Legends and Rip The Script. The Trainspotting vibe of adidas football’s Scotland ad is great. I also love Brahma’s energy of Brazil football passion mixed with recreations of their classic World Cup moments. SuperSport / CANAL+ ‘Everything Can Wait’ in Africa shows the impact on the daytime when following the tournament through the night due to time differences. Flamin’ Hot® ‘The Warmest Welcome’, sees Mexico fans get revenge on Arjen Robben and Maxi Rodríguez, two players that broke their hearts in previous tournaments. I like the France’s players going all Hollywood in Orange’s ad. EE’s ‘Yes Boys!’ is a powerful film about how football communities can help counter the pressures young boys face online and is one of the most emotive films to coincide with the World Cup.

Despite working in advertising for a long time, I clearly am a sucker for big star talent, nostalgia and emotion drivers. We can sometimes over-intellectualise things working in marketing, but if we entertain consumers, make it memorable and authentic to their experiences of sport or fandom, you go a long way to winning. This tournament’s set of brand ads are enjoyable in the most part, with some really great stand-outs. I just wish we could see more depth and nuance explored when it comes to fandom and move beyond the familiar fan tropes and convention. Let’s close the gap between the talk of being there for the fans and part of fan culture in press releases with what that actually looks like in real life, being reflected on screen.