Briefing

As an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Rexona wanted to strengthen its association with sport, drive awareness and consideration. But with every brands competing for attention simply being visible wasn’t enough. Our challenge was to make Rexona more than just a sponsor. We needed to make the brand part of football culture itself.

Strategy

The World Cup is an emotional rollercoaster. Last-minute goals, penalties and unexpected defeats make players and fans sweat. While nobody knows what will happen on the pitch, there’s one thing they can rely on: Rexona won’t ever let them down. But how could we turn this product promise into something that genuinely belongs in football culture?

Our breakthrough came when we looked at Tijjani Reijnders’ iconic goal celebration from a completely different perspective. Arms spread wide. Head slightly tilted. Then it hit us. Wasn’t Tijjani simply showing the world his dry armpits?

Suddenly, the connection was impossible to ignore. The perfect intersection of football culture, our ambassador and Rexona’s product promise had been hiding in plain sight all along. We didn’t need to invent a new football ritual. We just needed to give an existing one a whole new meaning.

Approach

In a playful post-match interview, he finally revealed the secret behind his signature move: he’d been showing the world his dry armpits all along, thanks to Rexona. We turned this simple idea into a 360° campaign spanning TV, online video, social, digital out-of-home, print, influencer collaborations and retail.

To take the idea beyond social, we collaborated with football shirt professor Floor Wesseling to create an exclusive Rexona x Reijnders collector’s shirt. Limited to just 100 pieces, the shirt featured Rexona’s promise, “It won’t let you down”, right where it belongs: underneath the armpit. The exclusive drop generated widespread earned media attention and organic content from creators and fans.

But we didn’t stop at Tijjani’s armpits. We found another unexpected place for Rexona in football: underneath the arms of the fourth official, marking a first in FIFA World Cup 2026 history. While most sponsors compete for visibility on the chest or sleeves, we placed Rexona’s logo exactly where the product is applied. Every time the substitution board went up, the logo was revealed. A simple placement that turned an everyday football moment into a natural demonstration of the brand’s purpose.