There is fresh movement around Unilever’s jam-packed World Cup partnership is a beta test for its new social-first…, and the story is worth a closer look.
We pulled together what is known so far and what it could mean for the people following it.
This story is part of our editorial series on how major retailers, fashion conglomerates, beauty brands and CPG startups are leveraging this year’s biggest-ever FIFA World Cup to their advantage.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is on track to be the most-watched sporting event in history. In its tournament opener on June 12, the U.S. Men’s National Team garnered an average of 18 million viewers during its match against Paraguay, up 132% from their tournament opener in 2022, according to the data Yahoo! Sports.
That’s good news for Unilever, the official personal care sponsor of the tournament and parent company to brands like Axe, Degree and Dove. The conglomerate is banking on worldwide fandom to support its hefty $10 billion-plus investment.
As previously reported by Glossy, Unilever’s strategy includes limited-edition product runs and a marketing funnel packed with thousands of creators.
“This is our biggest sports partnership ever at Unilever,” Afke Van de Klashorst, vp of integrated brand experiences at Unilever’s personal care division, told Glossy. “We are activating 35 brands in 120 markets, and we have 180 limited-edition [products] that have gone into millions of retailer locations across the world.”
This includes a focus on four primary brands — Dove, Dove Men’s, Axe and Degree, which is called Rexona outside the U.S. — plus smaller promotions for brands like Dr. Squatch, Paula’s Choice, Vaseline and Liquid IV.
“We see this opportunity as the biggest cultural sports event ever, and that’s why we’re very keen to be part of it with our brands,” said Van de Klashorst. “At the same time, it’s also promising to be the most socially connected sports event in the world to date.”
Unilever is employing an always-on marketing team working 24/7 from the conglomerate’s content hubs, each internally called The Locker Room. They are staffed by creator and community experts at Unilever and soccer strategists to quickly turn key tournament moments into viral social media content. The team currently has hub locations in New York City, London, São Paulo and others. The Locker Room isn’t consumer-facing, per se — don’t expect a live broadcast — but the team isn’t closed off to lifting the veil on its newsroom-like setup for the right moment.
“This tournament is so, so vast, and there’s so much opportunity, so we created very clear swim lanes for each of our territories [and brands],” Van de Klashorst said.
for example, Degree is focused on high-performance moments; the Dove Men’s line is centered on caring for one’s face; Dove is the catch-all for all things women’s sports; and Axe content focuses on reaching younger consumers through its “smelling your best while looking your worst” campaign. “We’re planning to be super agile or reactive, to be able to respond to what’s going on and tap into cultural conversations,” Van de Klashorst said.
The conglomerate also opened two creator hubs, called House of Fresh, in New York City and Mexico City, with a third planned for Miami during the tournament’s quarterfinals. Last week, content involving the NYC location received more than a billion views on social media thanks to a paid appearance by Roberto Carlos, a legendary former player from Brazil, plus inclusion in a CNN broadcast, Van de Klashorst told Glossy. Other paid partnerships with athletes include Daniel Sturridge, Christian Pulisic, Vinicius Jr., Florian Wirtz and Enzo Fernandez.
Carlos is just one of more than 250 key opinion leaders attending the invite-only hubs each day. The spaces include activations, games and sampling, with every guest heavily vetted by the Unilever team to ensure aligned values, Van de Klashorst said, and micro-influencers being a primary focus.
“We’re leveraging more than 50,000 creators, which is a really big thing for us, and meticulous planning has gone into that, of course,” Van de Klashorst said. “Our new marketing philosophy is not about just any voice speaking on behalf of our brands; there really needs to be a great fit, and we need to ensure that they do not necessarily represent the brand, but that there is a match with regard to who is speaking on behalf of the brand.”
Van de Klashorst thinks about the summer as a beta test for Unilever’s new social-first strategy, unveiled by CEO Fernando Fernández earlier this year.
“We are seeing this as a muscle we’ve established that is going to stick with us,” Van de Klashorst said. “It’s going to be something that we will implement in all of our work going forward. … We have a lot of great things in the pipeline, and we’re already applying the capabilities that we’ve learned into that, so it’s gonna stick.”
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