Published July 30
The World Cup had a major effect on Coca-Cola’s bottom line, the company revealed in its earnings report Tuesday, offering a glimpse of the larger impact that the tournament had on brands.
Henrique Braun, Coca-Cola’s new CEO, said that the tournament contributed to 5% volume growth for its trademark Coca-Cola drink in the second quarter, its strongest growth in 17 years, excluding the post-pandemic rebound. Overall, the company reported net revenue of $13.4 billion, a 6% jump.
“We translated the tournament’s momentum into powerful consumer experiences, placing Coca-Cola and Powerade at the heart of national pride and fan celebrations,” Braun said, noting that Coca-Cola was the No. 1 brand by share of voice.
Coca-Cola wasn’t alone. The tournament also delivered record ad revenue. Estimates range from $1.19 billion to $1.4 billion, with more than 6,700 brands activated around the World Cup, according to MediaRadar. Around half of those brands ran ads for three days or fewer.
Powerhouse advertisers like Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Verizon, Adidas, McDonald’s, Walmart, Google and American Express were among the 91 brands that advertised every single day of the tournament.
Independent research from Kantar found Coca-Cola had the highest brand lift of any advertiser it tracked. Its findings dovetailed with Braun’s takeaway that tapping into the emotion of the World Cup drives brand love.
“It’s always about the fans,” James May, co-lead of Kantar’s sports marketing practice, told The Current. “The emotion that the fans feel. And Coca-Cola has always been [about] happiness and joy and emotion. They had the TV spot at the center of the campaign but then overlaid and amplified that with all the socials and other promotional activity.”
Home Depot, Bank of America and Michelob Ultra, all official FIFA sponsors, also ranked among Kantar’s standout performers.
Beyond the biggest brands
The World Cup wasn’t just a victory for global sponsors.
Media agency Tinuiti worked with 12 clients during the World Cup, including The Black Tux, Wonder and TextNow.
Campaign budgets ranged from $10,000 to more than $10 million. Roughly half of those advertisers were traditionally performance-focused brands that assumed a tentpole event of this scale was beyond their reach. Most of that investment was broadcast and streaming spots during games.
Tinuiti’s senior director of media Investment, Rachel Costanzo, told The Current that the agency had to flip those “preconceived notions that this isn’t a space that [those brands] can engage in.”
The strategy paid off. One of those brands reported that their World Cup ads boosted brand familiarity by 50%, while viewers were 850% more likely to search for the brand online compared with its standard TV spots. This shows the connection between TV and streaming propelling search interest downstream.
Another advertiser generated a return on ad spend 14 times higher than its average streaming campaign.
Once brands started to see success after the record ratings and more inventory opened up, many extended their investment beyond their initial plans through programmatic media.
Leveraging programmatic meant more flexibility, granularity and better targeting, which led to higher performance, Costanzo said.
“Even if it’s fewer impressions that you are getting than if you did a national linear campaign, if you need to be reaching certain folks, you really are eliminating waste in that scenario,” she added. “So even if it’s less scale, it is still as meaningful and impactful to your bottom line.”
The Super Bowl vs. the World Cup
The World Cup also demanded a different creative approach than the Super Bowl.
While the Super Bowl is a one-night sprint, the World Cup is a marathon. The extended schedule gives brands multiple opportunities to build momentum instead of relying on a single breakout moment.
With national pride on the line — and the introduction of extended hydration breaks in 2026 — the most successful advertisers leaned into emotion rather than product messaging, Kantar Vice President Mike Griffin said. That’s far from the celebrity-driven ads that have dominated the Super Bowl in recent years.
“How do we make sure that we deliver the brand in a way that even if we’re not pushing product, we’re building emotion?” Griffin said.
Fox, ESPN and NBCUniversal are circling as FIFA prepares to sell rights for the next two World Cups. The English- and Spanish-language rights will reportedly be combined into one package.
July 28Chris Brooklier
