During its sponsorship of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Qatar Airways has hit a record-high of brand searches as a result of a sponsorship, according to new insights from Captify.
The data, released today by the leader in real-time audiences and insights powered by search intelligence, shows Qatar Airways’ major sponsorship of this year’s tournament drove record brand index results for the airline, outperforming every other sponsor combined.
According to Captify’s new World Cup Effect dashboard, which monitors Australian consumer behaviour across the tournament, Qatar Airways’ brand performance peaked at 11.7 times on the third Socceroos match day against Paraguay on June 26 – the biggest brand index spike by an official FIFA sponsor in Australian search.
Qatar Airways’ brand search also increased 2.5 times on June 14 – the day of the Socceroos match against Türkiye – and climbed to 4 times during the Australia versus US game on June 20.
Qatar Airways’ major sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup, initiated in 2017, has successfully shaped several tournaments, including the Qatar FIFA World Cup in 2022. Qatar Airways will continue its collaboration with the sport until 2030, staging several upcoming mega tournaments including the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027.
Qatar Airways has also launched special World Cup travel packages including international and domestic flights, transfers to various cities, hotel accommodation, airports and stadium transfers, and match tickets. The packages offer football fans from around the world to secure their seat at the FIFA World Cup 2026.
New Captify data also shows that Hyundai and Kia’s sponsorship of this year’s FIFA World Cup delivered strong returns, with the “Hyundai-Kia” search trend holding steady for the first two weeks of the tournament.
Searches had started to climb to baseline by the June 26 Socceroos match against Paraguay and continued to hold into June 29, showing that brand recall outlasted the matches.
Hyundai and Kia are the official mobility and robotics partners for this year’s FIFA World Cup. The car manufacturers developed a combined fleet of more than 2,100 vehicles for the tournament, integrated Boston Dynamics robots into live match events and opened the FIFA Museum in Rockefeller Center.
Other World Cup sponsors, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa and Lenovo, are spending big but seeing no conversion in Australian brand search, according to Captify data. All four brands’ search trends are below or just above their baseline throughout the group stage for Australia.
Despite the Socceroos’ elimination from the World Cup, interest in Australia is still gaining momentum, with a 36 per cent increase in search share for the World Cup over the past seven days. This aligns with TV viewing of the World Cup, which has reached 16.2 million people three weeks into the tournament.
The Socceroos’ final group match against Paraguay became the most-watched World Cup match on SBS, reaching 4.84 million. In addition, almost 4 million fans then watched the Socceroos play Egypt in Saturday’s knockout match.
Captify Australia general manager, Megan McElderry said the numbers reflect how deeply invested Australian fans get in major sporting moments and how that investment extends to the brands attached to them.
“The biggest moments in sport create the biggest moments for brands,” McElderry said.
“For Qatar Airways, every Socceroos match added momentum, but it was the night Australia made sporting history that sent searches through the roof. Hyundai and Kia, meanwhile, were the quiet achievers, the fact that their brand recall held suggests it builds cumulatively the more often it’s broadcast.”
