At one point during this year’s FIFA World Cup, it felt like every footballer on the pitch was wearing the exact same boots. Not the same brand, but the same colour, Initiative chief strategy officer Tom Dodd dissects this trend and why sporting brands have been caught offside.
Nike had pink boots. Adidas had pink boots. Puma had pink boots. New Balance had pink boots. The world’s biggest sporting brands had all seemed to arrive at the same conclusion about how to stand out on the world’s biggest stage. The result was amusing. Millions of viewers will remember the colour but far fewer will remember who made the boots in the first place. It’s perhaps been one of the more revealing retail lessons of the tournament.
While marketers, retailers and brands often talk about “moving at the speed of culture”, the World Cup exposed an interesting truth. When everyone rushes to participate in the same cultural moment, distinction becomes more valuable than relevance. In other words, culture might create attention, but distinction is what creates memory.
Over six billion people engaged with this year’s tournament globally, making it one of the largest cultural events on the planet. But unlike World Cups of the past, some of the biggest opportunities were found in – no, not water breaks – but in wardrobes.
The tournament became as much a fashion moment as a sporting one. Football jerseys evolved into collectibles. Luxury brands partnered with sporting giants and streetwear labels released limited-edition capsules. Vintage kits became a hot commodity and style staple.
Suddenly, ‘football’ or soccer as some of us call it here in Australia, is something people wear as well as watch. Nike partnered with Jacquemus around the French national team. Adidas teamed up with Willy Chavarria to celebrate Mexican football culture. Palace, Kith, Puma, Corteiz and dozens of others transformed football’s visual language into something that lived beyond match day.
Smart brands understand that consumers rarely buy culture itself, but they do buy brands that help them participate in it. Too often, retailers tend to approach major cultural moments by asking, “How do we sell products related to this event?”
The better question is: “What role might our brand naturally play in the culture around it?”
There are two very different conversations. While countless retailers leaned heavily into football tropes, match balls and tournament merchandise, IKEA largely ignored the sporting codes altogether. Instead, recreating national flags using everyday products from their existing range. It was simple, playful but most importantly it was unmistakably IKEA.
The campaign succeeded because it didn’t borrow relevance from football and instead leaned into their own distinctive assets – enter the iconic Kallax shelving units transforming into an England flag. How many of us have those in our homes?
Originality is increasingly important in a retail landscape where trends spread faster than ever. We see the same pattern emerge repeatedly: One retailer launches a creator collaboration. Others follow. One brand introduces a trend-led seasonal collection, others replicate it. Soon, entire categories begin looking and sounding remarkably similar, a bit like those pink football boots.
The World Cup also offered another lesson about the risks of cultural participation. When FIFA’s broadcast graphics accidentally obscured the middle of a Levi’s sideline advertisement, social media quickly noticed. For a brief moment, one of the world’s most recognisable labels appeared unable to spell its own name. Naturally, the internet did what the internet does best: had a good laugh.
Levi’s responded brilliantly, leaning into the humour rather than trying to control it. The brand understood that culture had already started the conversation. Their job now was to contribute to it.
The response felt authentic because it was. Yet within days, copycat versions began appearing across feeds. Brands rushed to recreate the formula. What felt clever on day one felt predictable by day three. The shelf life of cultural relevance has never been shorter, and, for retailers, that creates a new challenge. Perhaps one of the best examples from the tournament came not even from a retailer, but from New York City.
While hosting World Cup matches, the city launched initiatives encouraging visitors to explore neighbourhoods, local designers, independent retailers and cultural communities across all of the five boroughs.
New York used the tournament to shine a spotlight on the things that already made the city interesting. That was evident too when Knicks fever took over not just NYC, but the entire world. That’s perhaps the broader lesson here.
Cultural moments will always create opportunities, and our calendars are increasingly full of them. World Cups,
Olympics, Taylor Swift tours, Formula One races and viral TikTok trends aren’t going anywhere.
The temptation to treat every one of them as a brief to marketing is naturally, very real, but retailers that win in these moments understand who they are before that urge arrives, and, amplify what already makes their brand interesting.
And sometimes, that means choosing not to wear the pink boots.
