We are now past the group stage of this year’s FIFA World Cup, with teams progressing to the round of 32. While we are some ways away from knowing who the winner of the tournament will be, the battle for commercial exposure is already heating up.

Using YouGov BrandIndex, we’ve taken a look at five official World Cup sponsors: Coca-Cola, adidas, Visa, Lenovo, and Qatar Airways. Our data shows that, in terms of Ad Awareness, which tracks whether consumers have seen an advertisement for a brand in the past two weeks, Coca Cola has seen the most uplift between 29 May 2026 and 28 June 2026. Scores moved from 11.6 to 20.9, for an increase of 9.3 percentage points.

adidas is another major sponsor of the 2026 FIFA tournament and saw similar gains. Scores jumped from 12.7 to 20.0 (+7.3) over the last month: signs that the footwear brand’s ad buys are making an impression on the nation’s consumers.

When we move away from FMCG and retail, the story is less dramatic. Card and payment company Visa have seen an uplift of 2.2 points over the past four weeks, with scores rising from 6.0 to 8.2. Over the same period, computer-maker Lenovo saw Ad Awareness increase from 3.4 to 4.9 (+1.5), while Qatar Airways saw a slight decrease from 4.1 to 3.6 (-0.5). These brands may not be seeing the same results because they appeal more to business audiences, or to smaller consumer segments. Still, there is much of the FIFA World Cup 2026 left to run – although whether official sponsor status changes much either way remains to be seen.

This article originally appeared in City A.M.

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