• May 1, 2006

Led by a vanguard of 15 major global brands including Adidas, Coca-Cola, MasterCard, and McDonald's, soccer-related ads referencing the upcoming World Cup beginning on June 9th will constitute about 50 percent of overall advertising time and page space in a number of Western and developing countries in 2006, according to a report from ICOM, a network of independent advertising agencies representing about $2 billion in advertising revenue in over 50 countries. Countries where half of commercials will touch on soccer in some way include: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Panama, Thailand, Ukraine, and Venezuela.

Despite the heavy participation of American brands, the American domestic market won't see anything even close to this saturation: according to an ICOM poll, most agencies said "the event had 'very little importance' or was 'not important.'" An interesting exception is the American "Hispanic" market, where the World Cup was ranked "extremely important."

--Erik Sass