Why ready-made marketing is no match for football’s glorious chaos

I’ve been on agency teams that have tried in vain to plot every eventuality on a spreadsheet. It’s insanity-inducing. I’ve been in meetings where someone wondered out loud if there was anything we could do to speed up the process of a goal-scoring record being broken – match fixing perhaps? And somewhere in the dungeon of every agency is a chamber of beautifully crafted work that was once locked and loaded but never fired.

So, rather than trying to anticipate glory, there’s something to be said for watching the sport as an actual fan and reacting quickly and authentically to the things that make you feel something. Football is more than winners and record breakers; it’s narratives woven throughout a tournament or season, moments of resilience in adversity and the characters who defy expectations.

Take the unexpected cult hero status of Marc Cucurella, a player who wasn’t even meant to be at Euro 2024 yet turned out to be one of its stars. A now viral sign held up by fans as Spain defeated France to reach the final read: “If it’s a boy, we’ll call him Marc. If it’s a girl, Cucurella.” Genius. And much better than two-thirds of the work rotting away in agency dungeons.

Football is often sold as a cavalcade of grand finales and fairy tale finishes, but the truth is, it’s mostly about the agony of missed penalties, the addictive banality of mid-table clashes and the never-ending saga of VAR controversies.

Football is Romelu Lukaku’s perpetually offside, almost-hero journey.

Football is the fan’s frustration with a substitution made ‘too late to change anything’ and the eruption of ecstasy as it somehow changes everything (see Ivan Toney and Ollie Watkins). These are the moments that make the beautiful game so infuriatingly, wonderfully human.

The game is a tapestry of human experiences, exploding with opportunities for brands to connect authentically with audiences worldwide. The beauty of football lies in its ability to surprise and to invoke deep-seated emotions. Which is true of the best advertising.

Take Nike, which turned the passage of play where an Argentine player almost tore the leg clean off his Chilean opponent in an act of wild desperation into the ultimate testimonial for its product. I have no idea if it was real or fan-made, but it’s probably the thing I remember most from this summer of football.

Or consider the Adidas ad (top of page) that crops Jude Bellingham’s boot just as it’s about to strike the ball for his abrupt equalizer in England’s scrappy win over Slovakia. While the context around the goal was less than grand, the elation and relief of that moment will be remembered by every fan. Adidas triggered those emotions all over again with that ad. It also avoided featuring the player’s shirt, which is made by Nike, so bonus points for that.

There are so many different emotions attached to football. Fans connect to teams and players for wildly different reasons, whether it’s resilience, endurance, togetherness, passion, skill, determination, loyalty, flair, consistency, or courage. I’ve run out of adjectives, but you get the point. My advice to brands would be to figure out the attributes that are dear to them and amplify the instances where they’re on display.