Major sporting events like the FIFA World Cup, hosted across North America (the US, Canada, and Mexico), are more than just matches; they’re global cultural celebrations and mass-gatherings that draw billions of eyes. For brands, this is a golden opportunity to convert collective excitement into impactful visibility. And the most powerful way to tap into that? Through Programmatic Digital Out-Of-Home.
Digital Out-Of-Home transforms cities into living arenas with screens in airports, fan zones, transit hubs, and high-traffic urban streets. It’s the channel that turns match-day energy into physical brand momentum.
In this article, we explore how brands can use DOOH to leverage the World Cup wave, from the pre-tournament buzz to post-match celebrations, maximising impact during the peak period of June 1 to July 31, 2026.
The global scale: why programmatic DOOH is the perfect play
The FIFA World Cup draws an enormous global audience across continents, creating a unique context of mobility, high footfall, and collective emotion. This is why DOOH is indispensable.
- Massive economic impact: The total revenue projected by FIFA on the 2026 cycle is 13B€, with 8.9B€ anticipated for 2026 alone.
- Unmatched reach: An estimated 6 billion people are expected to watch the matches worldwide.
- High-value audience: The event is expected to draw 5 million spectators, connecting brands with a premium, international audience of business leaders, leisure travelers, and passionate fans.
DOOH thrives on that mobility and volume, delivering premium, unskippable messaging across multiple touchpoints. DOOH’s flexibility and real-time capabilities allow brands to react instantly to live events, guaranteeing contextual relevance.
DOOH strategies to follow the world cup audience journey
DOOH campaigns can strategically follow the entire attendee journey, from departure gates to post-match celebrations.
1. Airports & international transit: departure for North America
Airports are pivotal touchpoints for connecting with the premium, international audience.
- Strategic locations: Capitalize on premium digital screens in airports by targeting departure gates used by fans travelling to North America for the FIFA World Cup. This includes gates from participating countries (e.g., France, Spain, Italy) as well as major fan-base regions such as Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Japan, and others, allowing you to identify and follow fans right as they begin their journey to the tournament.
- Dynamic visuals: Use Airport Live Triggers to adapt your creatives based on where or from your audience is flying. For instance, adjust creative languages in real-time to only target travelers departing from Paris CDG to New York.
2. City journey: real-time contextual hype
In the city, DOOH screens serve as dynamic messengers, to support the local excitement.
- Geo-targeted activation: Ensure real-time DOOH presence around key points of interest, including the heart of the city, bars, fan zones, and sports venues during all match phases.
- Audience segmentation: Target football fans, beverage enthusiasts, and highly mobile audiences to maximise relevance and impact.
- Dynamic visuals: Use contextual creatives adapted to every match moment: build-up before the game, live and halftime during the match, and celebration or reaction afterwards.
3. Metro + train: owning the transit flow
Build a strong presence across key transit hubs (metro and railway stations) to engage massive commuter flows and maximise daily reach. This presence allows brands to share in the collective excitement and capture high attention levels with a broad, diverse audience.
4. Retail media: driving conversion in-store
For brands in the FMCG, beverage, and snacking categories, DOOH can turn real-time shopper insights into contextualised messaging.
- Data activation: In France, leverage retail data (e.g., Carrefour & Monoprix data) to precisely target shoppers.
- Sales peak triggering: Dynamically activate screens inside stores during recorded sales peaks to maximise conversion potential.
- Hyper-local granularity: Tailor activation store-by-store to match local shopping habits.
Measuring DOOH success and ROI
The campaign is only as effective as its measurement. Measure your DOOH campaigns with:
- Brand lift survey: Measures the impact of a DOOH campaign on brand perception, consideration, and purchase intent.
- Drive-to-store: Reveals how DOOH ad exposure translates into store visits uplift and measures its footfall impact.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is a global festival of passion, emotion, and shared experiences. For brands, Programmatic DOOH offers the perfect field: high visibility, real-time flexibility, emotional resonance, and mass reach across geographies.
By combining data, creativity, and strategic placements, from stadium approaches to urban nightlife, DOOH for the World Cup lets brands step into the fan journey and become part of the celebration.
