Meanwhile, early retail data suggested<\/a> Adidas merchandise sales also surged during the tournament\u2019s first half. Adidas has enjoyed a 58% share of team jersey sales, compared with Nike\u2019s 36%, per M Science data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although both firms launched glitzy brand campaigns prior to the Cup\u2019s kick off, their differing strategies \u2014 sponsorship and social versus outsider status married to big TV spending \u2014 have become clearer now the tournament is in full swing.<\/p>\n According to Mediasense analysis, Adidas\u2019 sponsorship activations and brand campaigns (\u201cBackyard legends\u201d) have proven the most successful of any FIFA partner, scoring highly for its relevance to soccer culture, fan participation and the \u201cextendability\u201d of the campaign itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the other hand, Nike\u2019s quasi-anarchic \u201cRip the Script\u201d spot has provided a means for the company to cut up and clip its campaign into dozens of individual moments. The decision to spotlight Haaland as the spot\u2019s last-minute villain also looks wise, given how the Norwegian striker has broken into the wider consciousness following his cool demolition of Brazil.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Adidas campaign is a more traditional big creative idea while Nike thought about it as a franchise. Brands are scaling content, but Nike is scaling culture,\u201d said Ishan Chatterjee, vp of global growth at Mediasense.<\/p>\n There\u2019s still a lot to play for, however.<\/p>\n Kit sponsorships provide sportswear makers with a chance of putting their stamp on iconic World Cup moments. Adidas started the tournament with 14 kits to Nike\u2019s 12, but of the eight squads remaining, Nike and Adidas\u2019 designs each adorn three. Puma, which began with 11 teams, still has two \u2014 Morocco and Switzerland \u2014 in play.<\/p>\n (Numbers aside, Adidas\u2019 Magritte-inspired away shirt for Belgium is surely the coolest kit still in contention.)<\/p>\n As the tournament kicked off, both companies shifted up a gear in their media investments. Nike\u2019s larger spending power in the U.S. shows. Between May 1st and June 30th, the brands deployed a combined $52.8 million in ad spend, according to figures from AdClarity (the above figures are in millions of dollars). The American brand outspent its German counterpart throughout.<\/p>\n In particular, AdClarity data showed that Nike focused much of its spend through May and June on TV, increasing from 42.9% to 50% of its overall media spending \u2014 perhaps an attempt to make up for the brand awareness it might have gained, if it were a sponsor like Adidas.<\/p>\n In fact, Nike has been among the most-seen brands running ads on linear TV during the World Cup. According to iSpot data, the company ran its spot 80 times so far, exceeded only by Home Depot. Adidas, by comparison, ranked 30th among the brands monitored, running its spot only 32 times.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Adidas put its dollars where the conversation was: on social. May through June, the company dialed up its investment on paid social just as Nike was dialing back its own spending on Meta properties and TikTok.<\/p>\n That sets up a neat run into the final stages of the tournament, with Nike aiming to steal the brand spotlight by appealing to game viewers at home, and Adidas gunning for soccer fanatics discussing the highs and lows of each remaining game online. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Cup\u2019s quarter final stage is set to bring the sport\u2019s big rivalries into sharp relief.\u00a0 France…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82,273558],"class_list":["post-792235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-the-sports-marketing-playbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/adidas-nike.jpg\")
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