World Cup Is Here. American Brand Strategy Still Isn't.

The World Cup returns to the United States and American brands — with every advantage of home-field reach and media spend — are still producing campaigns that miss the room. Not because the budgets are wrong. Because the briefs are.

U.S. brand teams tend to treat football as a soccer audience to be converted, rather than a global culture to be genuinely part of. The result is advertising that feels like a tourism poster: technically present, emotionally absent.

Contrast that with what Oura's CMO has done over the past few years — taking a product that could have stayed niche and building an identity coherent enough to travel. The Oura story isn't about a category pivot. It's about knowing exactly what the brand believes and making every touchpoint say that thing clearly. That's transferable. A World Cup brief could use that same discipline.

The opportunity in a global event isn't to speak louder. It's to have something worth saying to an audience that didn't grow up in your market and doesn't owe you attention.

Specific creative direction matters here: campaigns built around one clear human truth — not a product feature, not a flag — tend to land across cultures. American brands have the budgets to do this well. Most are choosing not to.