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Outside Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco, FIFA covered the iconic logo with a white tarp. Inside press boxes, Heinz ketchup bottles were taped over. Germany’s Jamal Musiala showed up with masking tape covering the Beats logo on his headphones. None of these are official FIFA sponsors and were banned from displaying their logos in stadiums, but all three generated more conversation than the brands that paid tens of millions to be there, according to the BBC.
It’s called the Streisand Effect — named after singer Barbra Streisand, whose attempts to suppress photos of her home online only made them more widely sought-after. Tell people they can’t see something, and you make it impossible to ignore.
Each banned brand played it perfectly. Levi’s pointed fans toward the tarp on social media — one TikTok racked up 9 million views — then rolled the covered-logo design across stores in seven countries. Beats turned Musiala’s taped-over headphones into a product launch teaser. Heinz released a limited-edition logo-free ketchup bottle.
FIFA’s actions handed all three a marketing gift they never could have bought. Official World Cup sponsorships cost up to $200 million. This one was free.