"The brands you love love soccer"

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World Cup is the world's biggest branding event, says American Copywriter, and I say it's about time someone in the US acknowleged it.

And yes, of course it's hard to imagine anyone better than Brazil, but I'm rooting for the Netherlands because my husband lived there as a kid and because they're looking awesome. (On the other hand, to the Germans, perhaps nothing would be more horrific than a World Cup win by Holland, as evidenced by this viral video. )

Meanwhile, the branding story, via American Copywriter:

Not Just For Soccer Moms

World Cup 2006 is just a few short days away and not only am I getting ready for the world's biggest sporting event, I'm getting ready for the world's biggest branding event.

That's right. Bigger than the World Series. Bigger than the Olympics. Bigger than Super Bowl. (Bigger thatn all of them, in fact, byt a long shot.)

According to a story in Business Week "A cumulative 28 billion fans watched the 2002 World Cup 2002 in Korea and Japan, and FIFA officials expect 32 billion cumulative viewers to tune in to the upcoming month-long tournament."

So what does this mean? It means that the biggest brands in the world are lining up to kick and be kicked by socce er ... football fans. of course Adidas ($200) and Nike ($100) are shelling out big bucks to promote themselves during the beautiful game's big tournament, but so are damn near every other brand you've heard of.

MasterCard, Anheuser-Busch, Google, Yahoo, Gillette, McDonald's. They're ALL there. And what would a World Cup game be without the Real Thing? Yep. Coke is behind the speckled ball, too. (No longer is the soccer ball speckled either. Adidas has the official WC ball. Wonder how much that ran them? (Hey, watch for the CU that is sure to be on every goal kick. They did it last time to make sure the viewers got a clean, close up look at that ball.)

And how 'bout this one, T-Mobile? As "Official Mobile Sponsor" they are rolling out new phones and World Cup-specific services. They're plan is to beam video highlights directly to enabled phones around an hour after each match.

So, face it haters: The brands you love love soccer. At least for a few glorious weeks this summer.