Brace Yourselves for the World Cup of Advertising...

Global marketers such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Nike are describing the 2010 FIFA World Cup as a larger event than even the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That scale -- combined with the intensity of interest in the sport, the national pride of fans and the fact that it's the first major global sporting event ever held on the African continent -- figures to sell a lot of sneakers and soft drinks.

ON THE BALL: Adidas is working with the overarching theme 'Every Team Needs,' and is heavily investing in new ball, footwear and apparel launches tied to the tournament.

"It's the No. 1 event in all of sports," Trevor Edwards, Nike's VP-brand and category management, recently told the company's investors, adding that the World Cup will be viewed by "half the world's population."

And it's why FIFA sponsors -- a group to which Nike doesn't belong, by the way -- spend up to $40 million for the privilege.

Coke, for instance, says its campaign for the World Cup will be the largest in the company's history, as well as its most integrated. The company's entire platform is built around the ebullient goal celebrations of soccer players, which Coke easily links to its long-held "Open Happiness" tagline.

The marketer's TV commercials, from Argentinean agency Santo, chronicle the history of goal-scoring celebrations. Coke has a 120-country, 17-language deal with YouTube to encourage viewers to film and post their own goal dances, and it even has persuaded FIFA to condone the awarding of a fan-voted trophy for the player with the best goal dance. There's also a celebration-themed anthem from Somali-born artist K'naan that is already charting on iTunes, and celebration-themed packaging and retail work, among other things.

Breaking through
"Consumers today are so connected and brands are talking to them in so many ways," said Emmanuel Seuge, Coke's group director of worldwide sports and entertainment marketing. "We need to be super-focused and super, super clear if we expect to break through the clutter."

Mr. Seuge said the roots of Coke's one-idea approach stemmed from a meeting between 13 agencies and Coke executives in South Africa in 2008, when executives presented the celebration concept and said they were only interested in approaches that utilized it.

That's a distinct shift for major sports sponsors, who traditionally assemble myriad programs around an event that sometimes have little apparent thematic connection to each other beyond the advertisers' logo.

Other marketers attempting to link their activities under a big, overarching idea this year include Visa and Anheuser-Busch InBev. Visa, a top-level FIFA partner, is conducting all of its activities under the same "Go Fans" platform it uses for the Olympics.

Its World Cup plans include a mobile app that lets fans monitor the match schedule, track scores and standings, chat with each other and even connect with the FIFA store. The "Visa Match Planner" app is part of a campaign that also includes TV, out of home, retail and social-media facets, all under the "Go" umbrella.

A-B, for its part, is operating off a platform called "Budweiser United," which emphasizes the brand's general ubiquity in sports while nodding to its new owners' even more global aspirations. One key component of A-B's effort, which also includes extensive advertising, is a digital reality show that will feature fans from all 32 participating countries living together in a "Big Brother"-style house.

Epic campaign
Nike is rolling out a new campaign called "Write the Future," which it describes as an evolution of its "Next Level" soccer campaign that focused on improving as an athlete and getting to an even higher level. Mr. Edwards said that the World Cup represents the ultimate level, and that all of Nike's work around the event will revolve around that idea.

The campaign includes an epic TV spot, from Wieden & Kennedy, that Mr. Edwards said is one of the best the company has ever produced, as well as a digital and mobile app called NikeFootball Plus, which features some of the best players in the world offering tips on tricks and training to get better. Nike isn't an official FIFA sponsor, but it sponsors several top teams and players, which gets it onto the field.

Some other major sponsors, such as Adidas and McDonald's, are taking a somewhat more piecemeal approach. Adidas has an overarching theme called "Every Team Needs" that it's emphasizing heavily in digital work featuring soccer stars describing different types of players, but it's also investing heavily in new ball, footwear and apparel launches tied to the tournament that are under separate platforms.

McDonald's, meanwhile, is operating a dizzying number of programs on the ground, including one sweepstakes that lets kids escort their favorite players onto the field, and another that gives South African women the chance to be part of an on-field dance routine. There's also a McCafé for the on-site press and a handful of digital programs meant to encourage fan interaction.

But, unlike Coke, McDonald's is deploying its activities at the games differently in each market.

Dean Barrett, McDonald's senior VP-global marketing, said the company's focus on utilizing the sponsorship in its stores trumps any desire to take a more homogeneous approach. "There are always some things that we can do globally, and digital is something that can be global," he said. "But the reality is that the World Cup is team-driven and local-market driven."