You can't buy attention: What World Cup 2026 taught brands about culture

Every time a World Cup comes around, it brings the inevitable debate about which brands “won". But looking back at 2026, the most interesting work pointed to a much bigger shift in marketing.

You can buy media, rights, talent, but you can't buy people's attention. You have to earn it. The brands doing that best understand the conversations, behaviours and communities that already exist, and find a credible way to become part of them.

Bank of America produced two million free Fan Bands, with 140 different beads inspired by teams, host cities and football culture. Fans could customise, collect and trade them. By early July, more than 700,000 had been distributed, and the bands were soon appearing on resale sites for as much as $500.

None of it feels like selling a bank. Bank of America leaned into a behaviour already embedded in culture, friendship bracelet collecting, and made it relevant to football fandom. It didn't need to be the experience. It made the experience better.

McDonald's showed a different shift, in how brands use talent. Its campaign featured Beckham, Ronaldinho, Henry, Son and Yamal. But its smartest piece of casting wasn't a footballer. It was Fabrizio Romano.

His “Here we go" has become part of how fans experience the game, so rather than putting him in an advert, McDonald's made the campaign behave like the content people already follow him for. He “broke" the news that Yamal, Ronaldinho, Beckham, Son and Henry had signed for McDonald's. Within an hour, his post generated 10 million views and was shared 54,000 times.

Fame is a commodity. Cultural authority isn't.

Then there was Levi's. Because it wasn't a FIFA partner, clean stadium rules meant its name had to be covered at Levi's Stadium. Covering the logo still left the outline of its batwing, and the conversation took over the internet. Levi's leaned in, producing a limited edition “Nobody's Gonna Know" logo tee. It sold out.

JPMorgan estimated more than 500 million impressions, a 44% increase in brand mentions and engagement up more than 400%, ahead of FIFA partners including Adidas, Coca-Cola and McDonald's.

There is a version of this that plays out differently outside the Americas. For much of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the World Cup wasn't really a live event, with games kicking off at 10pm, 1am, sometimes 3am. In the UK, live viewership for early hours matches collapsed to around one in five, and highlights became the default way most people watched.

Most brands treated this as a scheduling problem. adidas treated it as an attention problem, partnering with WhatsApp to turn the platform's football emoji into Trionda, the tournament's match ball, across every Android and iOS device globally. WhatsApp carried more than 25 million messages a second during the 2022 final, a number expected to be beaten this year. That's where the football conversation was actually happening, whatever the hour. adidas didn't need anyone watching live. It just needed people talking, and they always were.

Hydration breaks provided the clearest counterpoint. They created valuable new commercial inventory, but fan resistance when advertising interrupted play showed the difference between attention that's captured and attention that's earned.

So what should brands take into the next World Cup?

Stop planning around a single live moment. It's no longer one event watched together, it's thousands of smaller ones spread across time zones and platforms.

Cultural authority beats fame. A famous face is easy to buy and easy to copy. Understanding who a community trusts is not.

And earn the moment before you take it. Culture moves fast and won't wait for a brief to be signed off.

Get that right, and you don't need to fight for attention. You earn your place within it.