Why meme marketing dominates the World Cup conversation

During the World Cup, some of the biggest marketing moments won’t come from official sponsors or ad campaigns. They’ll come from memes and other online sources that showcase fan participation. 

World Cup fans enjoy a multimedia experience. They’re scrolling social media, participating in WhatsApp watch parties and sharing memes in real time. This second screen behavior creates new opportunities for brands to participate in the fan experience. A player's expression after a missed goal or a fan's celebration in the stands can become internet fodder within minutes.  

That puts marketers competing for relevance within internet culture. Successful brands realize clever, polished productions aren’t enough anymore. Online, speed, humor and shareability matter more. Reach still matters, but distribution and engagement determine which moments break through.

Views are still important, but shareability is gold. 

In this article, I’ll share creative ways brands are joining the online conversation.

Memes have become a form of sports commentary. They capture the joy and heartbreak fans experience during the tournament. And since they’re easy to make and share, memes help fans become participants rather than just consumers. Lay’s recognized “meme-power” and launched a WhatsApp-based World Cup fan group to tap into the group-chat behavior that defines much of the fan experience. This approach reflects a shift toward WhatsApp marketing, as brands seek participation in group chat culture. 

Fans experience the tournament through internet culture

The internet enables fans to participate in online discussions and content creation. The social chatter can move just as fast as the action on the field, meaning brands are competing against creators and fans for attention. 

This shift has become one of the defining World Cup social trends, influencing how fans react to tournament storylines. 

Speed matters more than production quality

Pop culture relevance has always had a short shelf life, and during the World Cup, that window can be a matter of hours. To capitalize on that relevance, Adidas had Messi-focused celebration content ready when Argentina won the World Cup in 2022. 

One of those was a shareable CGI tribute around Messi’s win. The production values were grainy, the audio was choppy and it was unbranded. The effect looked homemade and fans loved it. The activation generated roughly 250 million organic views as fans celebrated Messi's long-awaited World Cup victory. 

Paul O'Connor, Director of Brand Communications and Sports Marketing at Adidas MENA, the team entered the 2022 World Cup with activation plans built around Lionel Messi and Karim Benzema, hoping that at least one Adidas-sponsored superstar would likely become part of the tournament's biggest story. 

O’Connor said, “We were always planning a CGI-type activation. You can be quite agile with CGI. And you have to be because there’s little time between the semi-finals and the final to organize things.” 

Adidas didn't just get lucky. The brand prepared for multiple tournament outcomes and was ready when one of sport's biggest stories unfolded. Once the content launched, fans took over the distribution. 

Shareability is the new visibility

Optimizing for shareability over visibility is a new metric for many brands. 

For decades, sports marketing focused on reach. Today, marketers are paying closer attention to private sharing trends because many of the tournament's most influential interactions happen away from public feeds. Fans exchange memes, reactions and commentary through group chats and direct messages throughout the tournament season. Brands want to be relevant enough to get shared within those private channels because every repost and remix extends the life of a marketing message beyond the brand’s own audience.

The best World Cup marketers understand that participation matters as much as visibility, so they design shareable content. 

Reacting in real time

Real-time marketing looks spontaneous from the outside. In reality, the most successful brands identify likely scenarios and empower social teams to act when opportunities emerge.  

Budweiser planned to send beer for stadiums, and two days before the opening match, FIFA reversed its position on alcohol sales inside stadiums. Budweiser tweeted, “Well, this is awkward.”

What does a beer sponsor do when they can no longer sell beer? They pivot. Budweiser decided to donate it to the winning country and built a campaign around #BRINGHOMETHEBUD. 

Speaking like fans instead of advertisers

During the 2022 tournament, a running joke linked soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and U.K. broadcaster Piers Morgan after a highly publicized interview in which Morgan defended Ronaldo against controversial decisions made by Manchester United management.  

Afterward, whenever Ronaldo looked unhappy with a decision during a match, social media conversations said, “He’s going to tell Piers Morgan,” and it became a recurring meme. 

The joke worked because fans understood the backstory. Brands face the same challenge when participating in internet culture. The goal isn't to explain the joke. It's to understand why fans are making it and look for opportunities to tie it to their brand if there’s a fit. 

Building content designed for sharing

The strongest World Cup campaigns are built around participation. Fans remix and react to content, adding new layers of conversation to emotional moments. 

Audiences want to adapt and make things their own. Think of Panini’s World Cup sticker albums. Fans purchase packs of player stickers and trade duplicates with others to complete their collections, and it becomes a community activity. This year, Coca-Cola partnered with Panini for the 2026 World Cup album.

Modern meme marketing follows the same principle. The most successful campaigns give fans something to collect, share, remix or discuss with others.

It’s not easy to participate in meme marketing and maintain the brand. Trends move fast, and fans don’t connect with content that feels forced. The brands that succeed in meme and shareability culture have clear processes, a strong understanding of their audience and the confidence to participate selectively. 

Moving too slowly

Traditional advertising campaigns are highly controlled, but meme culture rewards speed. By the time a response is drafted, reviewed and published, fans may have already moved on to the next moment. 

Winning at memes means brands prepare to be timely. 

Trying too hard to be relevant

Sometimes it’s better to skip the moment. Sometimes brands try to force a joke or popular meme and it falls flat. If the content feels overly promotional or inconsistent with the brand’s personality, fans sense it. 

Successful meme marketing starts with understanding the mood of the moment. Brands that misread the context and make a joke that misses the mark or otherwise looks opportunistic rather than relevant can damage their brand. 

During the 2022 World Cup, BrewDog faced criticism after positioning itself as an “anti-sponsor” while still running World Cup promotions.

During the 2026 World Cup, brands will experiment with real-time content, creator partnerships and fan engagement. As World Cup digital engagement evolves, marketers will look beyond traditional reach metrics to understand how content spreads. 

Which brands become part of the internet conversation

One signal marketers should watch is organic participation. The strongest World Cup campaigns extend beyond the original post. When fans create memes using brand assets and creators reference campaigns in their own content and in front of their audiences, that’s success. 

It’s successful not only because it resonates with audiences, but also because algorithms often reward content that generates engagement. It’s one thing to generate millions of impressions through paid promotion. Still, the goal is a campaign that inspires fans to create content and share it across TikTok, Instagram and X, thereby creating greater cultural relevance. 

Understanding sports fan behavior is critical in this new era of marketing. The strongest campaigns inspire fans to share, remix and discuss content in private communities. 

Which campaigns generate emotional reactions

The most powerful World Cup campaigns typically connect with stories already carrying emotional weight. Messi's 2022 World Cup victory resonated far beyond soccer fans because it represented the culmination of a decades-long journey.

Whether the emotion is joy, pride, heartbreak or surprise, the campaigns that travel furthest are often the ones that give fans a way to express how they feel.

Every World Cup generates unforgettable moments. How those moments spread has changed over the years. In 2026, fans no longer wait for broadcasters or brands to shape the narrative. They create memes, reaction videos and their own commentary. 

The future of World Cup marketing may have less to do with buying attention and more to do with earning a place within the memes and conversations that define modern fan culture.