{"id":69445,"date":"2026-06-01T10:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T10:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/69445\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T10:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T10:37:06","slug":"canadian-brands-avoid-fifa-marketing-rules-with-a-wink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/69445\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian brands avoid FIFA marketing rules with a wink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Science World is pictured wrapped as a soccer ball for the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Vancouver in May.ETHAN CAIRNS\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve hit a Tim Hortons lately, you\u2019ve probably noticed that the company has come to play for this month\u2019s FIFA World Cup. <\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, the coffee giant rolled out a limited-time offering called Tastes of the Globe: four different Timbits inspired by the soccer greats Brazil (lime cheesecake), France (cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e), and Italy (cappuccino), as well as Canada (a birthday-cake-and-popping-candy confection called fireworks); you can wash them all down with a caramel churro Iced Capp that is supposed to bring Mexico to mind. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s \u2018game on\u2019 at Tims,\u201d says the TV spot for the campaign, which features animated Timbits kicking around a soccer ball and concludes with a shot of the five treats identified by their national flags. <\/p>\n

Opinion: The World Cup is coming. It\u2019s ridiculous and expensive. Let\u2019s try and enjoy it anyway<\/a><\/p>\n

The campaign will also include a TV spot with Canadian national team player Jonathan David in a new Timbits Soccer jersey designed by Adidas. But while Adidas is an official sponsor of the World Cup, Tim Hortons is not; any connection you might make between the company and the global soccer tournament about to touch down in Vancouver and Toronto, as well as in the U.S. and Mexico, is entirely up to you. <\/p>\n

The Tims campaign is part of the long \u2013 sometimes admired and sometimes condemned \u2013 tradition in global sports of ambush marketing, in which companies associate themselves with an event without going to the trouble \u2013 and, more to the point, the massive expense \u2013 of becoming official sponsors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a camp that would say it\u2019s kind of immoral that companies are deflecting attention away from the actual sponsors that are paying notable money for sponsorship activities,\u201d said Timothy Dewhirst, a marketing professor at the University of Guelph\u2019s Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s another camp that would just say it\u2019s imaginative \u2013 you know: Good on Tim Hortons to craft a message where they build an association with the event without having to pay that high price tag.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, 2024, FIFA issued a 27-page Intellectual Property Guideline<\/a> for this year\u2019s tournament that included a section on \u201cHow to celebrate without creating an unauthorized association.\u201d <\/p>\n

It also works closely with the local governments where it stages tournaments to stamp out the practice. In advance of the 2010 World Cup, South Africa passed a ban on ambush marketing to protect the rights of sponsors such as Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch. <\/p>\n

When Dutch brewer Bavaria sent about 40 women into the stands at a match in Johannesburg dressed in identical orange minidresses, authorities charged two of the ringleaders under the new law, though the proceedings were later dropped amid a public backlash.<\/p>\n

In March, with an eye to the World Cup, Mexico passed a law banning ambush marketing that includes fines of more than US$1-million. In Canada, enforcement during this year\u2019s World Cup is falling primarily to bylaw officers in Toronto and Vancouver.<\/p>\n

But smart brands, aided by savvy intellectual-property lawyers, continue to push the boundaries.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the sportsbook and online casino FanDuel kicked off a promotion pegged to what it calls, in a press release, \u201cthis summer\u2019s international football tournament.\u201d The campaign, cannily dubbed \u201cDual Fan,\u201d is based on the recognition that many Canadian fans have a second team for which they cheer during a World Cup. <\/p>\n

So, the company has produced a collection of supporter scarves that it will be giving out on the streets of Toronto: On one side of the scarves, a stylized Canadian flag; on the other, the flag of one of the other 47 countries playing in the tournament. <\/p>\n

On no side: The FIFA or World Cup logos.<\/p>\n

Asked about the perception of ambush marketing, FanDuel responded with an e-mailed statement that read, in part: \u201cFanDuel regularly creates campaigns rooted in sports culture and fan passion, and Dual Fan is an extension of that \u2013 created to rally our customers around a shared sense of pride and participate in the broader cultural conversation surrounding the game.”<\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail also asked Tim Hortons about the perception that its Timbit promotion is World Cup ambush marketing; the company declined to comment and instead sent along a press release that had announced the campaign<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But some brands are only too happy to acknowledge that they are piggybacking on the event and to offer a rationale.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, the Toronto-based wellness and whole foods retailer Healthy Planet played host to Jonathan Osorio, the captain of Toronto FC and a member of the Canadian men\u2019s national team, at its Etobicoke location. Though he was there as a brand ambassador for Biosteel hydration rather than Healthy Planet, he filmed some social-media spots to help promote the store\u2019s Game Day GOAT<\/a> contest, which invites customers to guess the winners of each of 104 matches in what it called the \u201cglobal soccer tournament.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always focused on community,\u201d said Ashish Khera, chief marketing officer of Healthy Planet, who noted that the retailer sponsors youth sports in a number of the Southern Ontario markets where its stores are located. <\/p>\n

He said the company has considered big-ticket partnerships over the years. \u201cBut what we see is, it basically gives a lot of money to the big guys and takes money away from community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: The World Cup is a party, not an economic windfall<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Khera says that if people accuse the company of practising ambush marketing, \u201cI think they won\u2019t be wrong, to be honest.\u201d Most of the brands in the store, he says, are much newer than those found in the large grocery chains, and often the creation of independent Canadian entrepreneurs looking for a toehold. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so hard for them to compete against a traditional beauty-care brand or a traditional food brand, or food giant,\u201d said Mr. Khera. \u201cSo, we look at ourselves as the gateway for these brands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re fighting against the conventional industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the World-Cup-campaign-that\u2019s-not-a-World-Cup campaign? \u201cPeople love talking about who\u2019s going to win, right?\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get in that conversation, because that commitment towards the sport is what we want to align ourselves with. Not so much about saying we are the official sponsors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Science World is pictured wrapped as a soccer ball for the FIFA World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164,224,238,214,212,239,17,211,230,231,227,213,210,235,171,234,143,222,249,215,216,229,225,226,219,240,220,244,245,247,242,246,94,243,217,142,233,113,232,241,223,236,237,228,221,218,248],"class_list":["post-69445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}