Nine Young Advocates, One Global Playbook: What Youth Monitors Saw in World Cup Junk Food Marketing

When the FIFA World Cup kicked off in June 2026, so did one of the largest ultra-processed product (UPP) marketing pushes in the sport's history. All over the world, UPP companies, such as Coca-Cola, Lays and Pepsico,  spent months embedding their products into the emotional core of the world's most-watched sporting event, reaching billions of fans. 

The stakes behind that marketing are high. Diet-related non-communicable diseases are among the leading causes of death worldwide, and UPP marketing is a well-documented driver of the purchase of UPPs that lead to unhealthy diets. Children and adolescents are especially susceptible to the aggressive advertising tactics UPP companies use to target them. And this World Cup, UPP companies expanded aggressively into digital spaces, using hashtags, QR codes, influencers and gaming platforms to reach young people. 

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) engaged nine youth advocates across seven countries — Uganda, South Africa, Jamaica, Barbados, Indonesia, Argentina and Colombia — to monitor UPP marketing in their own communities. Collectively they logged nearly 100 examples across television, billboards, supermarkets and social media and then wrote personal reflections on their experience. 

Across every country, the same global brands — Coca-Cola, McDonald's, KFC, Lay's, Pepsi — showed up again and again, alongside strong local players (Café Javas in Uganda, Mostaza in Argentina, Todo Rico in Colombia). Regardless of geography, the marketing followed a near-identical script: sell an emotion, not a product. 

Vuyiswa Mochochoko (South Africa) put it plainly: brands rely on "sports personalities, competitions, emotional messaging, limited time promotions and attractive visual branding" rather than any mention of what's actually in the product. Consuelo Funes (Argentina) described it as a shift in what's being sold entirely: "Football was the product they were really marketing, while snacks, sugary drinks and fast food became the vehicle through which consumers could participate in that experience." 

Jordaina Denton (Jamaica) found the same held true even without official sponsorship, as non-sponsor brands in her market outnumbered official ones, "suggesting that these brands sought to capitalize on the popularity and visibility of the tournament despite not holding official sponsorship rights." 

A recurring and troubling theme was how these campaigns consistently positioned UPPs as a requirement for enjoying the tournament. Ampire Rosette (Uganda) documented how ads across nine local and multinational brands "normalized the consumption of ultra-processed products and sweetened beverages by portraying them as an essential part of every gathering." Abaasa Elizabeth, also monitoring in Uganda, saw the same pattern in campaigns from McDonald's, Lay's and KFC: "Many advertisements suggested that watching the World Cup was incomplete without a particular food or beverage." 

Rifty Octapiani Fauziah (Indonesia) learned that this marketing rarely stays confined to a single channel, it moves fluidly across "social media, digital platforms, promotions, collaborations, retail activities and other forms of consumer engagement," making it far harder to track, or avoid, than a billboard alone for example. 

Perhaps the most striking evidence of these campaigns' power came from Vennessa Parris (Barbados), who watched a friend who had actively been trying to avoid sugary drinks buy a Coca-Cola mid-match after repeated exposure to in-game ads: "The advertisements did not directly tell her to buy the drink, yet by repeatedly associating Coca-Cola with the excitement, celebration and enjoyment of the World Cup, they influenced her purchasing behavior." 

Joseph Kazembe (South Africa) raised a sharper concern about how children bear the brunt of the harms from marketing influence. He found "ads such as those from fast food companies during the World Cup are the most dangerous and frequently consumed by children," often featuring beloved athletes as the face of the pitch. 

Maria Paula Diaz Fajardo (Colombia) added a further layer, noting how uncomfortable it was to watch celebrated national footballers, role models to young fans, lend their image to products those same athletes would never eat regularly to sustain their own performance. 

The participants’ observations reveal how expansive and ubiquitous these marketing campaigns were. And when fused into a beloved global event, watched together in living rooms, bars and public squares, it becomes nearly impossible for consumers, let alone children, to opt out. 

Several of the participants noted the activity changed how they personally watch football and the ads around it. While it is so important to identify and denormalize UPP marketing tactics, it is not enough to ask individual consumers to self-regulate how they experience marketing. Without stronger marketing regulations, UPP companies will keep treating the world's biggest stage as their own at the expense of the fans’ health.