The World Cup’s Best Marketing Moments Couldn’t Be Bought. Or Created by AI.
How Heinz, Gillette, Levi’s and Kraft found their opening,and what it takes for small and mid-sized business brands to do the same.
When FIFA’s clean-stadium rules kicked in at the 2026 World Cup, something unexpected happened. Brands that weren’t even official sponsors and hadn’t paid FIFA a dime started owning the conversation.
Heinz ketchup bottles inside stadium concession areas were taped over to comply with non-sponsor branding rules. Heinz responded by releasing their own “Unofficial Stadium Ketchup” with the label intentionally blacked out.
Staring down the requirement to cover their logos on stadiums during play, Gillette and Levi’s got creative. Gillette posted an image of their logo buried in shaving cream with the caption, “At least we got to choose how we cover it.” Faced with the same problem, Levi’s placed a white tarp over their stadium logo, but the distinctive batwing shape remained visible underneath, creating a viral installation.
Kraft identified an unplanned opportunity to get in on the buzz. After the TSA went viral warning World Cup travelers not to carry full bottles of ranch dressing back home in their carry-ons, they announced a TSA-compliant travel pack.
None of these were big, expensive campaigns. Some weren’t even planned ahead of the event. Yet, all of them generated the kind of visibility money can’t buy. And none of them could have been executed by AI.
Here’s what allowed these brands to seize the moment and what any business, regardless of size, can learn.
It’s Okay to Be Creative (And Even Make People Laugh)
One of the things I find myself saying to clients, particularly in B2B and government-facing categories, is that there’s more room for personality in their marketing than they might initially think. Many organizations default to a communications posture that is professional to the point of being flat and in doing so, they lose the one thing that actually makes people stop and listen.
Personality doesn’t have to mean laugh-out-loud funny. It means showing that there’s a humanity to your brand. That you understand you’re talking to real people. That you’re willing to meet them somewhere other than a spec sheet or a capabilities statement.
Sometimes we think of creativity as ad design. Creativity in marketing for brands is much deeper, and can (and should) be applied to any small, medium or large brand.
Move Fast
Kraft’s TSA ranch campaign went from idea to public announcement in 24 hours. The speed at which this happened is not a happy accident. It’s reflective of an organization that had the strategic clarity to know what they stood for, the creative confidence to act on it, and an agency partner with the agility to execute before the relevancy window closed.
Speed to concept and execution is something I think about a great deal in how we work with clients at COHN. Part of what we do is closely track what’s happening in popular culture to recognize an opportunity when it appears.
An agency that is constantly monitoring for relevant hooks and able to execute on them quickly is a valuable partner. The brands that moved fast here earned visibility they couldn’t have purchased. The ones that waited missed it entirely.
For small and mid-sized businesses especially, speed is often more accessible than budget. A well-timed, well-executed idea, one that is genuinely consistent with your brand, can generate outsize returns. But only if you’re ready to move.
Brand Foundation Makes All of This Possible
If there’s one takeaway about brands capitalizing on opportunities like these, it’s this: These approaches looked effortless. They weren’t.
These activations were possible because the brands in question had invested deeply in defining their voice.
When the opportunity arose, Gillette didn’t have to think twice. Their brand was clear, their creative instincts were sharp, and the answer was obvious. Their product became the punchline and the solution simultaneously. That is brand clarity doing its job.
In internal conversations at COHN, we often talk about the concept of surprising and delighting audiences. The brands that deploy it consistently aren’t the ones chasing trends. They’re the ones so grounded in who they are that they can recognize exactly when and how to show up unexpectedly.
These World Cup examples are the output of a clear brand strategy, a defined personality, and a team of people who know how to act on both without hesitation.
A Human-Centered Approach Still Has a Place in an AI-Centered World
Another key driver behind these campaigns? They started with real people identifying real opportunities.
AI didn’t pick up on the chance to turn an annoying rule into a viral marketing campaign. An algorithm didn’t decide that a foam-covered stadium sign was on-brand. No machine made the call to release a limited edition product in response to a social media post. Human beings did. People with strategic instincts, cultural awareness, creative confidence.
At COHN, that human-centered approach is foundational to how we come up with innovative, creative ideas that can drive a brand forward. As AI continues to reshape how brands communicate, the marketing tactics that actually break through will increasingly come from a real person who saw something, felt something, and had the brand chops to act on it.
What This Means for Small and Medium Businesses
Most small and mid-sized companies aren’t watching the World Cup thinking about their brand. They’re busy focusing on their daily operations, on the next client, on the quarter. That’s exactly why having an agency partner who is paying attention matters.
What made these brands impossible to ignore wasn’t their ad spend. It was their foundation. A clear brand strategy, a creative team ready to act, and the confidence to take a well-calculated risk when the time was right.
That combination is available to any organization willing to invest in it.
