On paper, Adidas' Backyard Legends has everything a 2026 World Cup blockbuster needs. Lionel Messi, David Beckham and Lamine Yamal share the frame with Timothée Chalamet and Bad Bunny in this epic 5 min ad that reportedly cost a huge US$100M to make. It is a textbook example of the celebrity-crossover, street-aesthetic playbook that we are seeing a lot of lately.
So, using our ad intelligence tool add+impact®, we put it to the test in the USA, UK, and Canada. We tested the shorter 30s edit to see how people responded.
The results were not what we expected. They are a great reminder that attention and impact are two very different things.
The ad's key single most consistent strength is its ability to get noticed. The positive energy and bright visuals resonate, along with the humour, cool music and strong story-telling.
But the overall picture was more sobering. In all three markets, the ad underperformed when compared to other retail advertising. In other words: people enjoyed watching it, but it didn't convert that attention into impact.
One key challenge is brand linkage. Despite Adidas' instantly recognisable identity, viewers repeatedly struggled to connect the ad to the Adidas brand.
The numbers tell the story. Brand link was 89% against a 95% target in both the US and Canada. In the UK, it was a very low 81%.
For a brand as iconic as Adidas, that gap is worrying. The star power, the story and the cinematic polish dominated people’s focus, but the brand is not central to any of that. A Nike logo could be used at the end of that ad and it would still make sense….that is the worry.
The branding shortfall rippled outward to also limit the impact on brand feelings. When you create a campaign as BIG as this, there is an expectation that the ad will grow brand love just by association.
But, in all three countries, feelings towards Adidas were no stronger after people watched the ad. We measure this by conducting a control measure of Adidas without seeing the ad and then compare these to the brand responses after seeing the ad. Bonding with Adidas in Canada was 7.1 (ad) vs 7.5 (no ad) and in the UK it was 6.9 (ad) vs 7.4 (no ad). The US showed similar softness.
The pattern is telling. Audiences connected with the story, they loved the football legends, the nostalgia, and the community but this didn't transfer to the brand.
The responses across the three countries were remarkably consistent. The ad's strengths are emotional and sensory: attention, humour, music, energy, and the theme centred around teamwork and community.
Its weaknesses are structural and persuasive: brand linkage, simplicity, message clarity, and the ability to impact on brand feelings.
Younger and more urban audiences responded more positively than older people. In every market, the connection between the storyline and the brand identity was the single biggest opportunity for improvement.
Backyard Legends is not a failure. It's a high engagement ad that doesn't fully cash in its potential.
It proves that the crossover formula genuinely works to capture attention and generating cultural buzz.
But it also highlights the risk that when you build a film around borrowed star power and atmosphere, the brand can become a guest in its own advertisement.
The fix, as the testing suggests, is not less ambition but tighter integration. Weaving Adidas more deliberately through the narrative rather than saving it for the final frame.
In a tournament being sold as "14 Super Bowls", the brands that win won't just be the ones who hire the biggest names. They'll be the ones who make sure that when the noise dies down, the audience remembers exactly whose story they just watched.
Want to find out more? Send us an email at hello@lumaresearch.com to book a meeting and we will share the full story.