3 ways PepsiCo brands are using innovation to engage football fans beyond the pitch

3 ways PepsiCo brands are using innovation to engage football fans beyond the pitch

Football has always been more than what happens during the 90 minutes, and for PepsiCo, football has long been a powerful way to connect with people. However, in 2026, our focus is firmly on how the game is lived, not just watched. Football globally is defined by rituals, shared meals, neighborhood pitches (fields), online debates, and everyday moments that matter to fans far beyond matchday. Across PepsiCo's portfolio, we are engaging football fans.

In 2026, PepsiCo is using innovation across our food and drinks brands to meet fans exactly where football shows up in everyday life - connecting culture, technology, taste, and performance in new ways.

1. Turning fan culture into an always-on platform

Earlier this year, Pepsi launched Pepsi Football Nation, a multi-year global platform designed to celebrate football culture beyond the match. Rather than focusing solely on match action, the platform is built around the conversations, rivalries, and traditions that define fandom before kick-off, during games, and long after the final whistle.

At the heart of the launch is a global brand film that hands control to fans themselves, inviting them to define the unwritten "rules" of football culture. That idea extends into digital innovation, integrating Pepsi Football Nation into the lives of fans through three targeted activations: a browser extension that automatically corrects "soccer" to "football," (rule No. 1 of the Pepsi Football Nation); a Giphy partnership that harnesses shoot content to give consumers the ability to share their emotions around gameday; a strategic Reddit activation designed to spark authentic engagement where football's debates live.

By designing the platform around fan participation rather than passive viewing, Pepsi Football Nation reflects how fans around the world already experience the game.

2. Using technology and "scaled intimacy" to bring fans closer together

Lay's is applying innovation to one of football's most familiar habits: following matches through group chats. As part of its No Lay's, No Game platform, Lay's launched a first-of-its-kind WhatsApp "Epic Watch Party," bringing football and entertainment icons Alexia Putellas, Lionel Messi, Sir David Beckham, Steve Carell, and Thierry Henry, and football fans into a first of its kind shared, real-time chat experience built around matchday conversations - already attracting more than 4 million participants globally.

Rather than pushing fans to a new platform, the platform meets them where they already are, using WhatsApp to deliver voice notes, behind-the-scenes content, and interactive moments from the stars that mirror the way fans actually watch football together. The "second screen" is designed to deepen engagement while building first-party insights at global scale.

3. Increasing participation through community

Across PepsiCo's portfolio, innovation is also helping make football something fans can actively take part in.

Through Lay's RePlay, the brand is transforming empty chip packets into sustainable community football pitches in partnership with the UEFA Foundation for Children and Common Goal, bringing access to play while giving packaging a second life. The initiative pairs infrastructure with long-term community programming, reinforcing football's power to drive inclusion and connection at a local level.

For Gatorade, innovation shows up through hydration science. In football, players can lose between 1 and 2 liters of fluid through sweat over a 90-minute match¹ - and of all team sports studied, significant dehydration has been reported most consistently in football.

For decades, Gatorade has fueled football athletes at every level across the globe, from community pitches to the world's biggest stages. The brand's new global football campaign "Trust What's Inside" reintroduces the iconic Is It In You? platform globally, spotlighting the sweat, sacrifice, and science behind performance at every level of the game, underpinned by decades of research from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute.

Gatorade's product portfolio - which is scientifically designed to replace what athletes lose in sweat - is directly integrated into the training and matchday protocols of national teams across multiple continents. The Brazilian National Team recently underwent sweat testing with the Gatorade Sports Science Institute (GSSI), offering each player personalized hydration insights based on their sweat loss to help them better understand their unique performance needs.

Football, reimagined for everyday life

Together, these efforts reflect PepsiCo's belief that football's true power lies in how it's lived every day. By innovating across culture, technology, taste, and science, PepsiCo's brands are engaging fans not just as spectators - but as participants, hosts, players, and communities connected by the game.

^{1_{Barnes KA, et al. (2019). Normative Data for Sweating Rate, Sweat Sodium Concentration, and Sweat Sodium Loss in Athletes: An Update and Analysis by Sport. Journal of Sports Sciences. Gatorade Sports Science Institute.}}

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