Event Marketing: Why Most Brands Should Skip the World Cup

80% of the brands who chased the World Cup probably shouldn't have.

Here's why:

Every major event pulls brands in.
The Super Bowl, NBA Playoffs, and the World Cup.

We've had Hollywood-scale ads, themed cookie boxes,
and a diaper brand asking people to plan conception around the tournament.

A lot of brands spent huge amounts of money on broadcast spots and sponsorship fees,
and walked away without anyone really remembering they showed up.

The question worth asking before any of these activations
is whether the moment matches what your brand is already known for or if it's where your customer is..

Here's 3 brands who fell into this trap and 3 that did it right:

❌ Paula's Choice

Paying to be the Official Skincare Sponsor of a men's football tournament is a pretty wild leap.

IMO, their customer base barely overlaps with the men's football audience,
and the budget would've gone further with an omni-channel media strategy, and talent/creator partnerships.

❌ Huggies

Running a campaign telling people to time their conception
so their parental leave hits the World Cup is genuinely creative.

But Huggies already owns the audience for diapers.
Spending budget to reach a niche they don't need is the kind of clever that wins a brainstorm but fades in market.

❌ Crumbl Cookies

Soccer-themed cookies and a "Soccer Bundl" for watch parties.

They can't even use the words "World Cup" because of FIFA trademark rules,
so they're calling it "soccer week."

That's the whole tell.

✅ Nike

"Rip the Script" pulled 65 million views in 4 days
with Ronaldo, Mbappé, Haaland, and a cast of cultural icons.

Football is Nike's world. Or at least you felt it was this month.

They've been operating in it for decades, and they've gone big enough to stand out.

✅ e.l.f

e.l.f did a smart move by deciding not to chase the men's World Cup at all.

They own the women's football lane via their NWSL Challenge Cup partnership
and the Tottenham Hotspur Women's "back of shirt" deal.

They picked the moment their audience is in,
and saved the budget the men's tournament would have eaten.

✅ Levi's

Levi's isn't an official sponsor, so FIFA made them cover their stadium logo with a white tarp.

Instead of complaining, Levi's made the tarp the campaign,
swapped their global profile pictures to the covered logo, and put white sheets on storefronts from Paris to Hong Kong.

Here's the takeaway I want you to take from this:

When a moment gets this big, most brands are genuinely better off sitting it out.

If football isn't your world, don't try to rent it for 6 weeks. It's pointless.

The smarter move is to ignore the event, find a moment your category isn't owning,
and do something there that earns attention instead of buying it.

The work that gets remembered came from brands that picked their moment rather than chased someone else's.

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Follow Jacob Rokeach for more on creative and building systems that scale.