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A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Fans sitting down to a World Cup match at Boston Stadium, typically known as Gillette Stadium, noticed little squares of blue tape on their seat backs, perfectly sized to cover up the name of the shaving company. That is just one example of how hard venues have to work to satisfy FIFA’s demand for no free advertising at the World Cup. Host cities must deliver what’s called a clean stadium – no logos, no ads for anything other than official FIFA sponsors. And in a world where stadiums are also billboards for brands, that can be a tall order. Here to talk about this is Andrew Rohm, professor of marketing at Loyola Marymount University.
So, yeah. These stadiums go through great lengths to try and make these changes. For example, San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, typically known as Levi’s Stadium, they go beyond just the signage on the outside. They’re actually covering the logos of the brand names of the ketchup bottles in the press box. That is quite the feat. So why is FIFA such a stickler about all this?
ANDREW ROHM: Yeah. I mean, what we’re watching play out in this World Cup is essentially a billion-dollar branding standoff. And I think the perfect irony here is that brands like FIFA have tried to silence the, you know, brands that actually may be getting more attention than some of the brands that are official FIFA sponsors that have paid to be there. So on one hand, we can understand the case for FIFA’s debranding policy. It’s rooted in commercial logic, like official sponsors like Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa. They pay millions of dollars for their four-year partnership deals. So there’s this fairness argument that it would be unfair to allow a brand like Gillette to benefit from stadium exposure for free when a direct competitor, like Unilever, has paid for that exclusivity.
MARTÍNEZ: But if I’m, say, the leader of a company that has paid $200 million for a 20-year naming-rights deal with a stadium, I expect my money to get me something out of that. Why can’t all of a sudden I demand that I have my money’s worth for this?
ROHM: You bring up a really good point. And, you know, on the other hand, FIFA’s execution at this World Cup is bordered on the extreme, and that’s where its policy, its debranding, its clean-stadium policy begins to undermine itself. And I think the deeper problem here is what I would call the iron-fist paradox in brand control, especially today in 2026, with the spread – widespread usage of social media. The more aggressively an organization tries to suppress a brand, the more attention it draws to that brand. Using the example of trying to erase the Levi brand from its own stadium, in doing so, it actually handed Levi’s a global marketing opportunity and moment that money could never have bought.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Same thing with Gillette, right? Because the Gillette company posted a computer-generated image of its logo on the Boston Stadium covered in shaving cream. So, I mean, some brands, I guess, that’s the whole point of what marketers do. You figure out a way around it and still get the same kind of bang for your buck.
ROHM: Yeah. I think the brilliance of what Levi’s and Gillette and others have done is that they have inserted themselves very organically or naturally into a cultural moment and a cultural experience. For instance, Levi’s didn’t just post about the way they covered their stadium logo. They took that same covered logo, and they went global with it, using it in stores in Paris, London, Hong Kong, in the same white covering. So you can cover the logo, but it becomes its own conversation.
MARTÍNEZ: Andrew Rohm, professor of marketing at Loyola Marymount University. Thank you very much.
ROHM: Thank you. Appreciate it.
MARTÍNEZ: And a note – Levi Strauss & Co. is a financial supporter of NPR.