Some brands brag, others execute

By Ignasi Vargas · FALCA, creative studio · Barcelona

During the World Cup hangover, some brands have been showing off how much money they spent during the event.

Long ads.

Famous people.

Cultural relevance.

The hype.

Also a sort of silent murmur that makes us wonder if the person who will be buying the shoes is watching those art pieces.

On the other hand there is the stock market, which is one cold judge of us all. The people in the index have shown that the priority is understanding how to make money, not how to spend it.

Adidas put Timothée Chalamet, Messi, Bad Bunny, Bellingham, Yamal and Rodman into one five-minute film called Backyard Legends. Reported budget: fifty million pounds. Their biggest creative World Cup push in about twenty years.

Nike answered with Rip The Script, six minutes, Channing Tatum as Haaland's body double, plus Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Ibrahimović, LeBron, Travis Scott and Kim Kardashian. Between May and June the two of them spent $52.8 million on ads, and Nike ran its spot 80 times on television compared with Adidas's 32.

Then the results came.

On 30 July Adidas reported record revenue, 6.74 billion euros, and an operating profit of 574 million against the 770 million the analysts wanted. The difference was the World Cup marketing bill. 924 million euros.

Bjørn Gulden called the quarter unbelievably strong, pointed at 14% currency-neutral growth, and told the analysts he had not expected a fall of this size.

The shares dropped 18 to 19 percent that day. A record.

By their own account they sold four times the jerseys and twice the footballs of Qatar, around 1.72 billion dollars of World Cup sales. Whether the film did that, or the World Cup did, nobody can say. The index marked him down anyway.

Puma reported the next morning.

The effort there was dominated by a primarily social presence, events before and during the tournament, and some in-house produced assets for the elevated social.

0 euros spent on paid media.

The ROI was based on the quality and shareability of the assets.

Sales fell 9.4% in the quarter. The operating loss came in at 53 million against the 69 million expected, so the loss was smaller than the market feared. The shares slipped a few percent and are still up 23% on the year.

And Puma said the honest thing in its own release. Very positive brand impact, yet no significant commercial gain in football from the World Cup.

Eleven qualified teams, jerseys selling out, nothing you can put in the revenue line.

Which is where the interesting part starts, because the money still has to buy something.

Showtime was 7 main cuts, one per player, each delivered in different formats. 60 final retouched stills. 21 player action on the pitch, 31 lifestyle and portrait, 8 product.

All across 5 shooting days in 4 countries. Brazil, London, Manchester, Milan. Directed by Tyrus Phill, photographed by Jordan Green.

Four countries that have to cut together as one campaign. Same look, different light, different days, and players who give you two hours before they go back to their club.

That holds because everything which does not need the player is already finished when he arrives. You rehearse, you get ready. The shoot is short because the preparation was long.

Nobody can prove a film sold a shoe. What you can measure is what the money bought. Adidas bought one film for fifty million pounds. Puma got seven films and sixty finished stills out of five shooting days.

Data: FALCA Backrooms report. Also on Ignasi's Substack: Las Métricas (lasmetricas.substack.com).