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Good morning.<\/strong> About one-third of the estimated $8.9 billion in revenue that FIFA will collect from the 2026 World Cup comes from an ecosystem of official partners, sponsors and supporters. And that doesn\u2019t include the billions that brands like Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, Qatar Airways, Lenovo, Hyundai-Kia, Aramco, AB InBev, Bank of America and Verizon will pay to supplement those efforts in what\u2019s been described as one of the most complex marketing stages in the world.<\/p>\n What\u2019s in it for the sponsors? Nike\u2019s star-studded Rip the Script<\/em> has been viewed 79 million times while studies show World Cup sponsors outperform the S&P 500 during the tournament. Associating with star players helps too. (Expect Argentina\u2019s stunning comeback against Egypt to enhance the aura around Lionel Messi.)<\/p>\n For more insight on how the World Cup fits into a broader business strategy, I spoke with Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA and CEO of Personal Care North America, a division that launched its biggest-ever sports partnership as \u201cofficial personal care sponsor\u201d of the World Cup. Patel says the deal is core to his strategy to build \u201cdesire at scale\u201d in Unilever\u2019s high-priority U.S. market. His approach:<\/p>\n Embed legacy brands in the culture:<\/strong> Patel argues there\u2019s \u201cmore trust in legacy brands than institutions,\u201d but Americans want \u201clegacy brands to be relevant.\u201d He thinks about winning the social shelf, the digital shelf, and the physical shelf. Last year\u2019s Coachella was a guide: When a viral TikTok highlighted body odor in the crowd, the company flew a plane over the concert with a message: \u201cSMELLS LIKE YOU NEED US \u2013 DOVE DEO.\u201d\u00a0 Dove climbed 36 spots in Instagram\u2019s global beauty ranking. This time, the company is giving away tickets and limited-edition products while creating local fandom moments and activations around different tiers of products. \u201cIt\u2019s about connecting our brands to major cultural moments,\u201d he said, adding that, like sports, \u201cbrands need to provide unity to society at a time when it can be quite polarized.\u201d<\/p>\n Leverage AI and the creator economy:<\/strong> Patel sees AI as a growth driver, telling me that the \u201cnumber one currency is still creativity\u201d while AI can \u201cpersonalize it to cohorts faster.\u201d Unilever has close to 6,500 creators putting out content, with invite-only \u201cHouse of Fresh\u201d physical hubs in Mexico City, New York, and Miami for creators and influencers during the World Cup. \u201cWe will start the paid media, but how much organic earned media do you get as a consequence?\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s gone viral because you\u2019re hitting culture.\u201d<\/p>\n Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com<\/em><\/p>\n An AI productivity push backfires<\/b><\/p>\n Cognition CEO Scott Wu says companies got “carried away” with tracking AI token usage as a proxy for productivity, which led workers to deploy bots to complete useless tasks just to climb internal rankings. The real measure of AI ROI, <\/span>he argues<\/span>, is output, not usage.<\/span><\/p>\n The ex-banker running the America’s Cup<\/b><\/p>\n Marzio Perrelli, a former Goldman Sachs and HSBC executive, was <\/span>appointed<\/span> in April as the first CEO of the newly formed America’s Cup Partnership, a structure created to professionalize the business side of the world’s oldest sailing trophy. He tells <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i> his goal is to build it into a permanent, annual event with the commercial scale of Formula 1.<\/span><\/p>\n Trump boosts Dell stock\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Dell shares <\/span>jumped<\/span> as much as 9% after President Donald Trump urged attendees at Monday’s opening bell ceremony to “go out and buy a Dell computer.” The White House said Trump was simply promoting the companies that donated to the Trump Accounts he was there to celebrate, but a former White House ethics lawyer tells <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i> that presidents aren’t supposed to pick stock winners.<\/span><\/p>\n S&P 500<\/b> futures are down 0.72% this morning. The last session closed down 0.45%. <\/span>The<\/b> STOXX Europe 600<\/b> was down 1.40% in early trading. <\/span>The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100<\/b> was down 1.40% in early trading.<\/span> Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 <\/b>was down 2.11%.<\/span> South Korea\u2019s KOSPI <\/b>was<\/span> down 5.35%. <\/span>China\u2019s CSI 300 <\/b>was down 0.77%.<\/span> Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng<\/b> was up 2.99%.<\/span> India\u2019s NIFTY 50 <\/b>was down 1.98%. <\/span>Bitcoin<\/b> was down to $62K.<\/span><\/p>\n Close to a million investors of the Trump memecoin lost a collective $3.8 billion, even as the president disclosed $636 million in earnings<\/span> by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez<\/span><\/p>\n He went from working in a factory to being rich enough to retire at 32\u2014but 3 decades later, this millionaire still works and takes public transport<\/span> by Preston Fore<\/span><\/p>\n AI startups are snubbing entry-level talent in favor of Silicon Valley men with top degrees, research shows<\/span> by Emma Burleigh<\/span><\/p>\n Nomagic\u2019s new AI lab headed by former Google DeepMind researcher claims success in early deployment of \u2018AI brain\u2019 for warehouse robots<\/span> by Jeremy Kahn<\/span><\/p>\n CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nTop leadership news<\/h3>\n
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