As the World Cup approached in 2022, Duolingo sent out a press release. It read, in part:
“Unless you’re an official sponsor, you can’t talk about the [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] … But with a bit of clever language, there’s always a way to [REDACTED] the rules.”
Back then, the games were being held in Qatar. Duolingo wasn’t an official World Cup sponsor, so it needed to be careful about its language — but it did pay to become the official sponsor of Qatar FC, an amateur soccer team from Brazil. That allowed Duolingo to declare itself the official sponsor of what it called “the other Qatar.” The company’s mascot, Duo the owl, became the team’s official mascot too. Duolingo launched a tool for translating soccer chants and trash talk into other languages, and released that press release full of redactions. The whole thing cost far less than an official World Cup sponsorship, but earned lots of media coverage and generated goodwill worldwide.
The World Cup was held in 11 U.S. cities this summer, and brands all over the world took their shot at joining the conversation. Now that the games are over, it’s worth thinking about how you’ll capitalize on the next big sports event.
People often call it “newsjacking,” and you have two primary options: You can create a moment or just create content. Either way, it requires preparation and patience.
How to create a moment
First, make two lists. On the left, write down the specific things your customers will actually experience — not “they’ll watch games,” but the granular stuff. Googling the offside rule five minutes before kickoff? Pretending they’ve always been a Christian Pulisic fan?
On the right, write down what your brand is already known for. Are you the bar that actually knows soccer? The restaurant where the neighborhood goes to celebrate?
Your angle lives where something on the left intersects with something on the right in a way that produces recognition or surprise. Can your bar start handing out booklets with all the World Cup rules? Can you promote free drinks if the U.S. wins?
As you brainstorm, ask yourself: Does this reinforce what we want to be known for? (Duolingo, for example, teaches people new languages — so its translation tool absolutely accomplished that.)
How to create content
Moments can be expensive. Content is fast and cheap. And during the games, you saw lots of brands reacting and engaging on social media. It looked spontaneous, but they prepared.
You can too. First, build your scenario templates. You don’t know who’ll win or lose any relevant games, but you know the emotional beats: the upset nobody saw coming, the heartbreaking penalty shootout. Write rough content frameworks for each. When the moment arrives, you’re filling in names and details, not staring at a blank screen at midnight.
Next, get your approval chain down to one person. This way, you’ll be able to get content up while it’s still relevant. A classic example: During the 2014 World Cup, optical retailer Specsavers had a rapid response plan in place with its media agency Manning Gottlieb OMD. The goal was for OMD to quickly respond to big cultural moments, with Specsavers’ approval not slowing it down. That paid off when a Uruguayan footballer bit Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini — and Specsavers almost instantly tweeted an image of Chiellini next to a picture of a plate of cannelloni pasta. “Should’ve gone to Specsavers,” it wrote. It got 13,000 retweets in the first hour.
Let’s be clear: You don’t need to get involved in the World Cup, or any major event. But if you want to, ask three questions: Does this make sense coming specifically from us? Have we checked every factual claim? Would we be comfortable if this got screenshotted as an example of brands doing it wrong?
If the answers are yes, then the ball is yours.
As the World Cup approached in 2022, Duolingo sent out a press release. It read, in part:
“Unless you’re an official sponsor, you can’t talk about the [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] … But with a bit of clever language, there’s always a way to [REDACTED] the rules.”
Back then, the games were being held in Qatar. Duolingo wasn’t an official World Cup sponsor, so it needed to be careful about its language — but it did pay to become the official sponsor of Qatar FC, an amateur soccer team from Brazil. That allowed Duolingo to declare itself the official sponsor of what it called “the other Qatar.” The company’s mascot, Duo the owl, became the team’s official mascot too. Duolingo launched a tool for translating soccer chants and trash talk into other languages, and released that press release full of redactions. The whole thing cost far less than an official World Cup sponsorship, but earned lots of media coverage and generated goodwill worldwide.
