What do good marketing, major sporting events and the stories audiences remember have in common?
When a big tournament such as the football World Cup kicks off, viewers follow more than just the results. Of course they want to know who is winning, who is knocked out, who is the favourite and who surprises everyone. But what often draws them in even more is something else: stories. The winner of this year’s World Cup will be known on 19 July, and by then the tournament will have produced countless moments we will remember far longer than the final score.
We root for the underdog who goes further than anyone expected. We are drawn to twists, rivalries, personalities, mistakes, bold moves and the feeling that we are watching something that means more than the result itself. Who will score their first goal, who will miss a penalty? Which team will win us over with selfless play, and which will “distinguish itself” with rough tackles and poor discipline? We will remember the ones with character, style and a story.
The same goes for brands. In marketing, too, people rarely follow slogans alone. Slogans can be useful. We remember the good ones for a very long time. How long has the now proverbial “… for everything else, there’s Mastercard” been popping up in everyday conversations? But most slogans have no larger story behind them, and we forget them in an instant. Audiences find it much easier to remember a brand that stands for something than a brand that simply repeats a nicely crafted sentence.
When everyone is watching the same match, just showing up is not enough
Big events always carry an important lesson for marketing: the audience’s attention is focused on a single event, yet standing out from the flood of messages is extremely hard. For brands this is an exciting moment, but also a trap. Many try to jump into the conversation simply because “something big” is happening. They post a generic supporters’ graphic, add a few football metaphors, use the tournament colours and hope to become part of the moment. But audiences see through it quickly. When a brand joins the conversation without a real idea, it does not come across as relevant. It comes across as opportunistic.
The real point is not that a brand should chase every big event. What matters more is finding a story within it that feels natural and convincing for the brand. Sometimes it is better to say less and hit the mark. At other times, a big social moment is exactly the opportunity for a brand to show its character, humour, perspective or values.
A good example of this logic is the British optician Specsavers, which has shown more than once how powerful humour can be when it is genuinely tied to the brand’s DNA. Their communication has long been built on a very simple idea: if you cannot see something properly, you need glasses. During football tournaments they have repeatedly turned this into quick, witty and instantly recognisable reactions to what is happening on the pitch. That is why their posts and ads, even on a smaller budget, have often worked better than the more generic fan campaigns of big sponsors. Specsavers does not try to compete with grand emotional films about glory and national pride. It serves up a clear, instantly understandable joke. “Can you imagine how differently the match would have ended if the referee had not been so ‘blind’, or if the goalkeeper had seen where the ball was going for once?” is a typical brand message.
People do not cheer for a slogan, they cheer for substance
A slogan is often just the entry point. It helps us remember a company, recognise it or quickly grasp its basic promise. But on its own, it is almost never enough.
Think of sport: nobody supports a national team because of its nice kit or a catchy anthem. People support a team because they feel something more. Because they see an identity. Because they know how the team plays. Because they understand what it stands for. Because they recognise themselves in its story.
It is the same with brands. If a company talks only about itself, its features and its products, it may remain correct, but not necessarily interesting. When it can build a story out of those facts, it becomes more human, more memorable and often more persuasive. A story does not mean making something up. It means assembling the real elements of a company into a meaningful whole. It means communicating not only what you sell, but also why you exist, who you help, what makes you different and why any of it should matter to anyone.
A good brand has its own style of play
Football experts talk about systems of play, such as lining up in a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2 formation. Some teams bet on discipline, others on energy, others still on risk and creativity. Even if we do not know all the players, we can often sense within minutes what kind of team we are watching.
This is a very useful analogy for marketing. The brands we remember best do not just have a recognisable logo or colour. They have their own style. Their own tone. Their own way of saying things. Their own rhythm of posting. Their own sense of humour, confidence, directness or elegance.
That is exactly why they are easier to remember. Not because they are always the loudest or spend the most money, but because they feel like something special. And here lies an important distinction: almost anyone can write a slogan. Building a brand with a recognisable character even without a slogan is much harder.
What makes a story truly strong?
The best stories in marketing often share a few very simple ingredients. Here are the four key ones in the winning recipe.
- a clear conflict: something the audience understands as a problem, a tension or a question. What is the challenge and how does the brand solve it?
- stakes: why does the product or service matter at all, why is it relevant to the user?
- the human factor: even in B2B communication, people still follow people, decisions, ambitions and mistakes. We need emotions.
- consistency: a good story is not a single post, but a feeling a brand builds over time.
How to attract attention without being pushy
One of the harder tasks in modern marketing is staying relevant without being intrusive. There is no universal recipe, but there is a good filter: is the connection between the event and the brand genuinely meaningful? Does the brand have a “natural right” to a topic such as football? We watch matches on TV while snacking on crisps and drinking beer. That one is easy. Hospitality, retail, media, telecoms and consumer brands can often find obvious connections. For others, it sometimes makes more sense to use the tournament as a gentle context rather than the main theme. We do not usually think about banking during matches. And yet many football fans remember UniCredit’s charming story of a shepherd arranging his sheep into a football formation. These are the connections that play on emotions and bring the brand closer to the user, so that they remember it when they are looking for a similar product, long after the football is over.
Sometimes a brand achieves the most precisely by not shouting “we are here too”, but by showing with one good idea that it understands the moment.
Audiences remember the ones they grow attached to
Big tournaments keep reminding us that people follow more than results. We follow stories, we root for characters and we remember style. And that is why a similar rule applies in marketing: the brands audiences truly adopt as their own are not necessarily the ones with the loudest slogan, but the ones with the clearest identity.
If a company can express that clearly, consistently and in its own way, it is building more than better communication. It is building a story people will remember long after the final notes of the championship anthem fade and the stadium lights go out.
If you want your brand to tell its story clearly and consistently, we can help: from content marketing and strategy to social media management. Get in touch and together we can see where your story already works and where it can be made stronger.
