Net gains: what will the World Cup deliver for fmcg brands?

This summer’s men’s World Cup will be a tournament of firsts. It’s the first to be hosted across three nations, the first with an expanded 48 teams, the first with a whopping 104 matches, and the first with 16 host cities.

In short, the tournament, which starts on 11 June, will redefine the scale of what was already the world’s most-watched sporting event. And the football extravaganza is a dream come true for food and drink marketers.

“What sport does better than anything else is create shared emotion at scale,” says Laura Owen, COO at full-service sports agency Mongoose. “A World Cup partnership can give a brand reach, but more importantly, it gives meaning, because people care deeply, live in the moment and remember how brands showed up.”

So, what kinds of deals and activations have brands got lined up? How will they utilise the media? And how will the tournament’s sheer vastness, spanning the US, Canada and Mexico – and the subsequent kick-off times – influence proceedings?

Few categories are more synonymous with watching football than beer. And no beer brand is more entwined with the World Cup than Budweiser. This year it launched a worldwide campaign to mark 40 years as the official beer sponsor, including limited-edition ‘Budstalgia’ packs containing can designs recalling past tournaments, which will be available in Tesco.

Despite having “huge expertise when it comes to activating football”, according to Jessica McGeorge, global premium brands marketing director for Europe at AB InBev, the company is leaving nothing to chance and invested $7.4bn in sales and marketing last year.

Limited-edition packs feature QR codes that unlock exclusive digital experiences and consumers can win tickets to games as well as the chance to hold the World Cup trophy. “In 2026, our activations are bigger than ever before,” adds McGeorge. “Combined with in-store theatre and campaign activity, it gives retailers a strong, distinctive way to engage fans.”

Messi and Beckham on the same team

No World Cup gathering is complete without snacks, and another official sponsor, Pepsico, will be launching limited-edition flavours and formats “celebrating global flavours” along with “eye-catching activations”, according to Rob Pothier, portfolio marketing director at Walkers. To take advantage of “excitement building earlier than ever…we’re already building anticipation and helping retailers create standout displays through football legend Walkers packs, in store now” featuring the likes of Lionel Messi and David Beckham on Walkers’ core 150g sharing range, he adds.

Another global giant leveraging its influence and financial power to align with the World Cup is Unilever. This month it launched a multi-brand range of limited-edition products and new variants across Dove, Lynx, Radox and Sure, with the latter including World Cup-themed artwork. These will be supported by extensive retail theatre, including World Cup PoS materials, free-standing display units and cross-brand retail media across grocery, beauty, convenience, independent and wholesale channels, both in-store and online.

It’s not just multinationals hoping to grab a piece of the World Cup action, though. Challenger brands are just as keen, with many of them boosted by investments from high-profile footballers. Arguably the highest profile of all is England men’s captain Harry Kane, who’s invested in numerous UK food and drink brands, including Vital Drinks.

“We’re beyond excited,” says Al Duffield, founder of the functional drinks challenger. “We’re in a very privileged position. Harry’s going to be all over our screens, everywhere we shop, everywhere we walk, all over advertising. The World Cup is going to be everywhere. So to be working with the England captain is really special for the brand. It’s an awesome opportunity.”

Vital’s plan is to leverage Kane’s IP and profile with the key aim of driving awareness, trial and penetration in store. The superstar striker invested in the brand last year, and while Vital cannot use imagery of, say, the World Cup trophy, or even of Kane in an England shirt, that won’t stop the brand from using Kane on FSDUs, PoS and barkers. It’s already had hundreds of shippers go live in Morrisons and 230 aisle fins go up in Sainsbury’s.

“Can we use a picture of the World Cup or mention Fifa? No. Can we allude to the fact there’s a big summer of sport and football? Yes,” says Duffield. And he’s bullish about competing with the big fish come World Cup time.

“We’re very aware that a lot of big corporates will be eating into that space and have first dibs on certain things, but Vital has exclusivity with Harry in soft drinks,” he says. “I’m sure we’ll see other footballers appear in other aisles. That’s great. But we’ve got the biggest name, and we’re in the fastest-growing category, which is a USP in itself.”

Most World Cup deals are complex, with Fifa notoriously protective on licensing and rights. Partnerships are secured following sales cycles that usually take 12 to 24 months, according to Owen, with Fifa’s commercial team likely to have been proactive in market since long before the last World Cup in 2022. Deals directly with Fifa usually require large-scale spend on both rights fees and activations, she adds.

“The business reason needs to be clear for a brand to get involved, whether that be market expansion, B2C activation, client entertainment or a big brand-building moment,” Owen explains.

“The harder part isn’t always the initial interest – most brands will answer the phone to Fifa – it’s aligning the spend, legal approvals, activation budget and measurement plan.”

Location, location, location

Seasoned World Cup watchers will remember the brutally early kick-off times when it was held in Japan & South Korea in 2002. This year, England’s group games start at 9pm or 10pm, with Scotland’s at 11pm and 2am.

For UK brands, a 9pm or 10pm start isn’t ideal for family-friendly viewing, but “it’s still very workable and sits in prime evening territory, meaning that for adult audiences it can feel like an event rather than a barrier”, according to Owen.

At PepsiCo, the times are certainly being seen as an opportunity. Matches at 9pm or 10pm will bring groups together to watch, socialise and share food, which is a “key opportunity for savoury snacks, particularly sharing bags”, according to Pothier. He also believes late matches will “mean breakfast is likely to be a big football-watching moment, too” and that “catching up on highlights over breakfast” will become part of people’s “morning ritual”, with Quaker oats “front of mind”.

The tournament’s host nations are already driving trends too. Pladis has added two limited-edition flavours – Chipotle & Lime and Nacho Cheese – to its Mini Cheddars line to tap interest in Mexican flavours. And Tex-Mex influences have been tipped to feature heavily at UK barbecues this summer, with the World Cup taking place during prime barbecue season.

There’s one elephant in the room, though. As mentioned earlier, this is a World Cup of many firsts. But one of them is decidedly less advertiser-friendly than the others. This will be the first World Cup where a host nation has started a war just a few months before kick-off. Most brands unsurprisingly swerved questions on this, but Owen says at a global event on this scale, “brands will always assess political risk, safety, travel complexity and reputational exposure”.

“That doesn’t usually stop serious sponsors engaging, but it does change the questions they ask,” she adds. “Given the current geopolitical climate, we’re sure to see brands activating with real purpose – I expect themes surrounding belonging, acceptance and ‘one world’ to feed into brand partners’ comms strategies this year.”

Much of the marketing carried out by brands during the tournament will of course take place online. Social media is particularly crucial, functioning, as it does, as the crucible where sponsorship transcends mere rights deals and can morph into a two-way conversation tool, when done right.

“Social media is absolutely central during major sporting events, because fans are following the action, reacting in real time and engaging with content before, during and after matches,” says Sure assistant brand manager Pavan Vaghela. “For brands, that creates a chance to join the conversation in a more immediate, authentic way – building reach, relevance and longer-term brand loyalty.”

Sure’s social-first approach will feature a social-led World Cup campaign with ambassador and England star Cole Palmer, while fellow Unilever brand Lynx is pioneering a large-scale creator partnership with The Sidemen, producing extensive social content ahead of the tournament by collaborating with up to 2,000 creators.

PepsiCo has created an Epic Football Watch Party Channel on WhatsApp, where fans can join the chat and access conversations between ambassadors such as footballers Alexia Putellas, Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Thierry Henry – and actor Steve Carrell.

It’s not all about having the wedge to sign up megastars, though, says Owen. Social media is “also where brands can punch above their physical presence. Not every brand will have the biggest in-stadium visibility, but the smart ones can still win the conversation through speed, creativity and creator-led storytelling.”

Panini stickers

Meanwhile, those of a certain vintage will be relieved that World Cup partnerships aren’t now solely the domain of TikTok and Instagram. CCEP GB head of partnerships Paul Hiskens describes its partnership with Panini sticker albums as “central” to its World Cup activation. The stickers will be integrated directly into key packaging formats, he reveals.

“This creates a strong collectability mechanic, giving consumers a clear reason to purchase repeatedly. It also taps into both nostalgia and social behaviour, as consumers share, trade and discuss their collections, extending activation beyond the point of purchase.”

It’s this wealth of different opportunities that makes the World Cup a marketer’s dream, says Owen. “Sport can move from client hospitality to mass public engagement, from grassroots community work to global content, all under one platform,” she says. “Few other marketing channels can deliver that mix of attention, tribal passion, premium entertaining, national identity and cultural conversation in one place.”