Social series · Global · 2026

Uber Eats · World Cup 2026

Hugo the goat.
Making World Cup picks

Unlike their biggest rival, Uber Eats was not a sponsor of the 2026 World Cup. With FIFA litigious, and the market noisy, we helped them take the logical step: turning to a (not-so) psychic goat.

  • 8
    Global markets: US, Mexico, Japan, Australia, UK, France, Spain, Germany.
  • 30
    Match-day prediction films.
  • 2
    Channels: Instagram and TikTok. Native-vertical, mobile-first.
  • 1
    Goat. Although Hugo did have an understudy.
A white goat with curved horns stands proudly atop a black tractor tyre in a dusty Mexican farmyard. Olive trees fill the background. A second white goat with a red number-13 ear tag walks past on the right. Late-afternoon light filters through the leaves; the ground is scattered with golden hay.
Hugo. Mexican by birth, world traveller by appetite.

The brief

A World Cup campaign
without saying 'World Cup'.

World Cup season is one of the loudest marketing windows in the calendar. Official partners pay a hefty premium, demanding that FIFA protect their investment aggressively, leaving unofficial partners tap-dancing around trademarks, geofences and lawyers.

Uber Eats is the latter. Their largest rival in food delivery paid to be the former. The brief: how do you make a campaign that feels like a World Cup campaign, without actually being one? Eight markets. Two of which were hosting the tournament.

The legal answer: with extreme care. The creative answer: with a goat.

The idea

Meet Hugo. A goat with global taste.

Hugo lives on a farm in Mexico, about two hours north of Mexico City, depending on the often chaotic traffic, as we found out several times.

In the original scripts, Hugo was psychic: Paul the Octopus for the streaming era, predicting match outcomes. The lawyers, who are admittedly sometimes right, weren't keen.

But then we realised: Hugo didn't need to predict anything. Goats eat everything. In a way, they're kinda connoisseurs. Rather than being a psychic animal, Hugo could just be a hungry goat: picking between national dishes each day of the World Cup group stages.

It was purely coincidental, of course - said our lawyers - that those two exact nations happened to be playing in the tournament that must not be named the next or same day.

No trademarks were harmed in the making of this campaign.

The launch film.

The picks

Eight markets. Thirty-odd matches.

Three prediction films per market (six for the UK, for England and Scotland) during the group stage. Each asking Hugo to choose between two dishes, to crown a winner, in the lead up to the corresponding football fixtures. Posted on Instagram and TikTok, with localised audio and captions.

Then, for the knockout stages, the client extended the campaign, commissioning follow-up shoot days to capture content for the rest of the tournament (or as far as our home markets went).

Scotland vs Morocco As posted on the Uber Eats UK account.
France vs Senegal As posted on the Uber Eats France account.
Germany vs Ivory Coast As posted on the Uber Eats Germany account.

Launch performance

Genuine virality. Within 24 hours.

The launch film proved immediately popular, its initial posting - in a collaboration post between Uber Eats's Mexico and Spain accounts on Instagram - generated rapid virality.

  • 22m+
    Views across the campaign content.
  • 150k+
    Likes. Popular kid

Credits

  • Executive Creative Director Mr. Beige (Lee Price)
  • Client Uber Eats
  • Production Beliliabelle
  • Director Mar Novo
  • Markets US · Mexico · Japan · Australia · UK · France · Spain · Germany
  • Channels Instagram · TikTok

Now you try

Two choices. One Hugo.

Type two options. Hugo will decide. Any resemblance to the campaign mechanic is, of course, purely coincidental.

Next case

Betfair.

Everyone's got an opinion.