Most brands investing in the World Cup will focus on what's seen. 

The campaign. The media buy. The digital rollout. 

These things matter. But they are not where the real opportunity lives. 

"The World Cup scores exceptionally high on Salience. But Salience is not the same as Meaning. And it is Meaning that drives long-term brand growth." 

Source: Kantar BrandZ, 2026 

The FIFA World Cup 2026 spans 48 nations, 104 matches, and 16 host cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Five million people will attend in person. 

The brands that win won't be the loudest in the feed. They'll be the ones who were actually there. 

The Screen Is the Starting Point 

Every brand at this tournament wants to be seen. Fewer are asking what's worth being seen doing. 

At this scale, the instinct makes sense. But the digital space at a World Cup is the most contested environment on earth. 

Adidas has Timothée Chalamet, Lionel Messi, and Bad Bunny in a single five-minute film, built around months of production and a roster of football's biggest names, past and present. Coca-Cola, Visa, and the other Tier 1 sponsors have campaigns of similar scale already running. 

That kind of presence builds awareness fast, and awareness is the foundation everything else stands on. 

But awareness on its own has a ceiling. A logo on a broadcast graphic gets a brand noticed but it needs to be supported by something more tangible 

The City Is the Opportunity 

A broadcast can show a crowd. It cannot put your brand inside one. 

The FIFA World Cup 2026 comes with 16 host cities, each running its own FIFA Fan Festival for weeks on end. For the duration of the tournament, they are physical environments charged with energy no media buy can manufacture. 

Most brands will treat them as content opportunities. Send a crew, capture the atmosphere, post the footage. 

The city does the work. The brand holds the camera. 

That is a missed activation, not a strategy. 

The host city is where meaning actually gets built. 

Why In-Person Is the Medium 

Kantar's analysis is clear: the strongest brands at major events build ritual, not just reach. They show up where people actually are, again and again, rather than reaching them only through a screen. 

That kind of ritual is built in physical space. In shared rooms, on crowded city plazas, at the specific hour when a team scores and five thousand strangers become one thing. 

A fan who plays something, wins something, or stands inside a brand activation carries that brand somewhere a media buy cannot reach: into the story they tell about the tournament. 

The logo that appears on the broadcast graphics still matter, they are what bring people into the orbit of the brand in the first place, and it is also what makes them recognise that brand again when they encounter it again on their morning walk, shopping for pre-match snacks, or in the shadow of the stadium on matchday itself. 

People don't remember the logo on the broadcast graphic. They remember the moment they stood inside something: a challenge they took on, a space they didn't want to leave, a brand that felt like it genuinely belonged there. 

The two work together. Broadcast gets a brand noticed. In-person is what makes it remembered.  

For Irish Brands, the Clock Is Already Running 

Ireland will co-host UEFA Euro 2028 alongside England, Scotland, and Wales. Dublin Arena is confirmed to stage seven matches, including a quarter-final, and the FAI estimates the tournament will generate €449 million in socio-economic benefit for Ireland. 

That is not a distant consideration. The planning window is open now. 

What is happening in Los Angeles, Miami, and Mexico City this summer is live intelligence for every Irish brand with ambitions around Euro 2028. Which activations hold people in person. What it actually takes to feel like part of a tournament rather than a brand that paid to be near one. 

The brands that own Dublin in June 2028 won't be the ones who started planning in 2027. This summer is where that work begins. 

The Real Competitive Advantage 

Budgets will keep growing. Campaigns will keep scaling. 

But the gap that is hardest to close is not creative or financial. It is physical. 

Being genuinely present in the spaces where people gather is still the most powerful brand strategy available. It cannot be copied like a feature or optimised like a media plan. 

We believe the future of brand is in-person. The 2026 World Cup is yet another example of this. Euro 2028 is the next chance to act on it. 

If you're thinking about what Euro 2028 means for your brand, we'd like to be part of that conversation.