AXE’s First FIFA World Cup Campaign Follows Superfans Across 7 Countries

AXE is running its first-ever World Cup campaign this week.

Developed by LOLA Madrid, "Smell Your Best When You Look Your Worst" features seven films that will roll out throughout the tournament.

Each one follows a superfan from a different representing country.

Special-edition cans will also roll out across the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Argentina, and Mexico.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 runs across 16 host cities, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

It opens on June 11 and ends on July 19, giving AXE a summer-long window to build brand awareness and recognition.

The Insight Driving the Creative

"Airplane," the first of the seven films, follows a Mexican supporter whose neighbors help him build an oversized trophy costume to wear to the match.

The film's humor comes from the contrast between the spectacle of the outfit and the quality of his fragrance.

Caroline Gregory, Global Brand Director for AXE/Lynx, said the idea came from watching how fans actually behave during the tournament:

"During the World Cup, guys are all in on football — they're not thinking about attraction. That was exactly the opportunity," she explained.

"It showed us the role AXE could play and unlocked a whole world of humor where the Power of a Fragrance creates unexpected connections."

The trophy costume is also a real prop with no CGI, built by specialists who will also construct the costumes featured in the rest of the films.

This production approach gives each spot an authentic, handmade quality.

Each film also follows a fan from a different country, ensuring the campaign has a built-in structure for rolling out new stories through the summer without repeating itself.

"Every look is packed with references to that nation's football culture — historic World Cup moments, iconic players, mascots, and the way fans traditionally show up to support their teams," Gregory told DesignRush.

"Those kinds of details help ground each film in local culture, so every story feels like it could only come from that particular place."

Entering the World Cup Scale

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is projected to be the largest in tournament history, with 48 teams, 104 matches, and an estimated 6 billion viewers.

For a fragrance brand entering its first World Cup cycle, the audience opportunity is obvious.

Gregory told DesignRush why 2026 was the moment for AXE to activate at this scale:

"Over the last few years, we've been rebuilding AXE's tone around the concept 'The Power of a Fragrance' — putting both humour and product back at the centre," she said.

"The 2026 World Cup felt like the perfect stage to bring that to life at scale. It's one of the biggest cultural moments in the world."

Parent company Unilever's FIFA partnership will run through 2027 and covers multiple personal care brands across the men's and women's competitions.

AXE will also be participating alongside fellow brands Dove Men+Care and Degree, with each running separately.

It is Unilever's top men's fragrance brand globally, and the special-edition cans and experiential activations will extend the campaign into retail.

This will give AXE a physical presence in stores across the three host countries and key European and South American football markets.

Here's what brands can take from how AXE structured its first World Cup sponsorship:

• Ground the product in a specific fan behavior: AXE found one precise moment where fragrance has a counterintuitive role and built the entire campaign around it.
• Casting a fan over a celebrity grounds the humor: A costume-wearing superfan is a more credible frontman for this premise than a famous face would be.
• A single insight can travel across markets: The superfan premise works in Mexico, Argentina, the U.K., and beyond because the behavior it depicts is universal.

Whether the joke will travel across all seven countries is still to be seen, but "Airplane" sets a high bar for the films that follow.

Our Take: Does the Humor Hold Up Over Seven Films?

We think "Airplane" is a strong opening.

The costume is genuinely funny, the insight is specific enough to feel true, and LOLA Madrid has built something that could travel well across different football cultures.

One funny film about a superfan in a bad costume is easy.

Seven of them, each from a different country, each needing to land the same joke with enough local specificity to feel relevant, is a harder brief.

We think the campaign's success will depend heavily on whether the remaining six films find the same balance between cultural accuracy and universal humor that "Airplane" manages.

AXE also recently launched a new spray nozzle technology alongside a campaign that reframes its overspraying reputation as brand history.

Sports marketing campaigns need agencies that know how to make a brand feel at home in fan culture. Explore the top sports marketing agencies in our directory.