AdMiration feature: Coca-Cola’s “Bubbling Up” & “Uncanned Emotions”

For this week's AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to two ads from Coca-Cola's FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign — "Bubbling Up" and "Uncanned Emotions," the first two films in a three-part series built around the platform "Feel It All."

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

"Bubbling Up"

The ad opens on a young woman inside a cramped elevator carrying a bottle of Coca-Cola. Then the FIFA World Cup is announced on the news. What starts as a low chant quietly spreads across the city as the anticipation starts bubbling into everyday life, pulling strangers into the same emotional current.

As the music builds, the film moves through a series of interconnected moments showing how deeply soccer culture seeps into ordinary life. The city gradually transforms. Subway platforms become singalongs. 

Set to a reimagined version of Van Halen’s “Jump,” the film captures the feeling of collective anticipation taking over before a single match has even kicked off.

The ad closes with fans invited to scan a QR code for the chance to win tickets to the FIFA World Cup 2026™.

"Uncanned Emotions"

The film opens in extreme close-up with ice crashing into Coca-Cola and bubbles rising to the surface. Fans are holding Coca-Cola cans while watching a match, frozen in concentration. The soundtrack and commentary build suspense like the final seconds of a game.

The ad rapidly cuts between close-up details and explosive fan reactions. When the goal finally comes, the release is immediate: screaming, jumping, Coke splashing from cans as fans explode with emotion.

Rather than showing the match itself, the film visualizes the emotional pressure of watching soccer.

The spot ends on a towering close-up of an ice-cold Coca-Cola can covered in condensation beside the line: “Refresh to recharge. Time for a Coca-Cola.”

3 facts

• Both films are strong performers. "Bubbling Up" lands in the top quarter of US ads for long-term brand equity and in the top third for short-term sales (Sales Impact: 72, Brand Impact: 78). "Uncanned Emotions" achieved very similar results: Sales Impact: 73, Brand Impact: 75. 

• Both ads generate strong Love scores — 35% for "Bubbling Up" and 38% for "Uncanned Emotions" (vs. 27% norm) — but each earns it differently. "Bubbling Up" builds Love gradually through collective energy and atmosphere, peaking when the chorus hits. In "Uncanned Emotions," Love is present and strong from the first second. Surprise rises through the middle as the tension builds before Love surges to its highest point the moment the tagline lands.

• Each ad gets across exactly what it sets out to. "Bubbling Up" leads on "Appeals to a wide range of people" (50%) and "Great taste" (59%) — the broad cultural associations of a pre-tournament anthem. "Uncanned Emotions" leads on "Crisp and refreshing" (57%) — a much more sensory attribute and the one at the heart of this product-first creative. 

2 learnings

• Making the product inseparable from the emotion. Most sports sponsorships work as a badge — a logo alongside an event, a brand signature on a jersey. What Coca-Cola has done here is different. Both ads are deeply product-centered and yet you don't feel like you're watching a product ad. You feel like you're watching content designed to get you in the mood for the tournament. That's because each film gives the product a distinct emotion to carry. In "Bubbling Up," the excitement of the World Cup moves through a train carriage the way carbonation moves through a drink. Viewers notice it too: "I like the parallel theme of bubbling excitement to the bubblyness of a Coca-Cola." "Uncanned Emotions" ties it to the tension and release of watching a match — the emotional journey fans experience in real time, with a drop of Coke landing in a glass like a goal being scored. A third film, "No Better Feeling," brings the story full circle with the feelings of celebration when a team wins big. The product at the center of every phase — before, during and after.

• There's more than one way to make people love your brand. Coca-Cola has built two completely different creative routes to emotional connection with the same brand. “Bubbling up” earns it through the atmosphere and collective energy. You feel the excitement because everyone around you is feeling it, and the music is key to that — Musical Appeal is the strongest metric in the ad (4.3 vs. 3.8 norm). “Uncanned Emotions” earns it through the senses by making us almost taste the Coke. The camera is literally placed at the perspective of the product. And the commentary amplifies that by creating the emotion of a match without showing one. Coca-Cola brought in Peter Drury — one of the most distinctive voices in soccer, known for his dramatic delivery on the game's biggest moments — to provide it. The result is a creative that works on two sensory levels. 

1 reflection

Does your product have an emotion to channel at every phase of your campaign?

Zooming out from the two films we tested, Coca-Cola is building something bigger. Across three films, the brand is giving its product a different emotion to embody at every phase of the tournament — making the product feel exactly what fans feel as we get closer to the World Cup. Coca-Cola put it plainly themselves: the campaign is designed to show how the product "naturally fits into and enhances these collective human feelings that only football's biggest stage can deliver."

Each film maps that idea onto a different moment. "Bubbling Up" gives the product anticipation to embody — the excitement building in the weeks before a ball is kicked, spreading from person to person like carbonation. "Uncanned Emotions" gives it tension and release — the fizz bursting outward at the exact moment the emotion does. And "No Better Feeling," just released as the tournament unfolds, will give it one more emotion to carry and that is celebration.

The question worth asking before your next sports marketing campaign: at each phase of the event, does your product have an emotion to embody?

"Bubbling Up" and "Uncanned Emotions" are the first two films in Coca-Cola's FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign, built around the new brand platform "Feel It All." The campaign was developed by WPP OpenX, led by Ogilvy US with VML, WPP Production and WPP Media, and is running across 180 markets. A third film, "No Better Feeling," goes live when the tournament kicks off on June 11.

The campaign's stated ambition is to position Coca-Cola as part of the emotional experience of the tournament rather than simply a sponsor of it — showing up at every phase of the fan journey from anticipation through to celebration. To do that across a global audience, the creative deliberately steers away from players and match footage, focusing instead on the emotions that soccer fandom produces and placing the product at the center of each one.

The campaign also marks the debut of Coca-Cola's official World Cup anthem — a reimagined version of Van Halen's "Jump" performed by J Balvin, Amber Mark, Steve Vai and Travis Barker, which features throughout "Bubbling Up" and is designed to travel beyond paid media into stadiums, social feeds and fan edits.

Beyond the three films, Coca-Cola is extending its presence across the tournament through the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour by Coca-Cola, giving fans around the world the chance to see the trophy up close, and a new collaboration with Panini introducing a custom World Cup sticker collection available in both physical and digital formats.

Coca-Cola has been a FIFA partner for nearly five decades, making it one of the longest-running sponsors in the tournament's history. 

Coca-Cola arrives at the World Cup with two films pulling in deliberately different creative directions. "Bubbling Up" lands in the top quarter of US ads for long-term brand equity and in the top third for short-term sales (Sales Impact: 72, Brand Impact: 78). "Uncanned Emotions" achieved very similar results: Sales Impact: 73, Brand Impact: 75.

The first job of any ad is to get noticed and both do that well — matching each other across every reach metric (Ad Distinctiveness: 4.0 vs. 3.7 norm; Claimed Attention: 4.1 vs. 3.9 norm; Brand Distinctiveness: 4.0 vs. 3.7 norm). 

"Bubbling Up" cuts through on the strength of its idea — the carbonation metaphor spreading through everyday settings is immediately distinctive, and the Van Halen anthem makes it impossible to ignore.

"Uncanned Emotions" earns it through brand visibility — the Coca-Cola can is in frame from the first second and never leaves, with the red color and the logo doing consistent work throughout. As one viewer put it: "The red can and classic logo were obvious, plus the glass bottle shots. The fizz and opening sound is very Coca-Cola coded."

Where the ads diverge is in how they invoke the emotion. "Bubbling Up" earns it through atmosphere and collective energy. It resonates strongly — Enjoyment: 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm, Love at 35% vs. 27% norm. 

The ad starts slowly with the excitement barely visible in the opening seconds. It spreads gradually, pulling more people into the feeling as it goes, until the collective energy builds into something that can't be contained. 

That build is reflected directly in the emotional trace: Love and Like run concurrently through the opening of the film until the FIFA World Cup announcement tips Love into the lead. The slow build is what makes the release feel so good.

Once the chorus hits, Love reaches its highest point in the entire ad. The Van Halen "Jump" rework is paying off — Musical Appeal comes in at 4.3 (vs. 3.8 norm), the strongest metric in the ad, and Viral Potential follows at 67% (vs. 57% norm). People put it plainly:

• "The music, it's a Van Halen song I love, the energy, happy people." 

• "Different scenarios matched with the product. Music and energy stood out."

• "I like the vibe and the music." 

"Uncanned Emotions" earns its emotion through the senses — making you almost taste the Coke. It resonates strongly too — Enjoyment: 4.1 vs. 3.9 norm, Overall Emotion: 65 vs. 57 norm, Love at 38% vs. 27% norm. 

Love is present and strong from the very first second. Surprise builds through the middle of the ad as the commentary escalates and the match tension hits its most intense moments. The commentary is doing the creative heavy lifting, making you feel  the emotional journey of watching  a match without showing one. 

Love dips slightly during this window before surging to its highest point at the exact moment "Refresh to Recharge" appears on screen and a woman takes a sip of her Coca-Cola. Viewers describe the experience:

• "The energy felt real, not over polished. Quick cuts, different people, different settings, all tied by that shared moment. The sound design too — like the crowd and that 'goal' tension. The Coke shots were simple but satisfying, the fizz, the cold feel."

• "I liked how the hairs on someone's arm stood up, and I also liked how everyone cheered when a team scored a goal."

Looking at how people score each ad on key category attributes shows that both films accomplish exactly what they're designed to. "Bubbling Up" leads on "Great taste" (59%), "Appeals to a wide range of people" (50%) and "Great for socializing" (47%) — the broad cultural associations of a pre-tournament anthem that puts everyday fans at its center. 

"Uncanned Emotions" leads on "Crisp and refreshing" (57%) — a very sensory attribute — followed by "Great taste" (54%) and "Great for socializing" (49%). The sensory creative work of the ad is translating directly into what viewers associate with the brand.

Together, the two films are doing more than either could alone.

Two films tested, a third just released — Coca-Cola is setting the bar for what it looks like when you use emotion to earn your place at the World Cup.

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