Every World Cup year I get the same question from Western brands. “We do not have official rights and we do not have Nike money, so how are we supposed to compete in China?” My answer is usually one word. Yili. The Chinese dairy giant does not own the tournament, yet during the football season it often owns the conversation. Its 2026 campaign, which had top teams playing “kung fu football,” is a small masterclass in how to win attention in China without buying the stadium.
The campaign was one of the most liked football videos on Meihua, China’s marketing case library, during the tournament window. What makes it worth studying is not the budget. It is the thinking behind it.
What Yili actually did
Instead of showing serious football next to a milk carton, Yili mixed two things Chinese audiences already love. Global football and kung fu. The result was playful, a little absurd, and unmistakably Chinese. Top players were shown performing football moves with the exaggerated energy of a martial arts film. It was funny, it was proud, and it was shareable. Nobody watched it because they wanted to see a dairy ad. They watched it because it was fun, and the brand came along for the ride.
This is the core lesson. Yili did not interrupt the entertainment. Yili became the entertainment. In a market where consumers scroll past advertising in half a second, being the thing people actually want to watch is worth more than any logo placement.
Why “kung fu football” is smarter than it looks
There are three quiet decisions inside this campaign that most foreign brands miss.
It borrowed two existing passions. Yili did not try to make people care about a new idea. It stapled its brand to two things Chinese audiences already feel strongly about. That is far cheaper and far faster than building affection from zero.
It was built for the feed, not the broadcast. The video was made to be watched on a phone, thumb ready to share. Short, visual, and instantly readable without sound. That is the format that travels on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and that is where the Chinese World Cup audience actually lives.
It let the audience finish the joke. A campaign like this invites comments, duets and parodies. Every remix is free reach. The brand supplies the setup and the audience supplies the distribution. This is exactly the “value co-creation” model that now defines strong Chinese campaigns, which I explored in more depth in how Chinese brands rewrote World Cup marketing.
The non official advantage
Many Western brands assume that without official rights they cannot play. The opposite is often true in China. Official sponsors are locked into rules, approvals and a serious tone. A brand like Yili, with no rights to protect, has total creative freedom. It can be silly, fast and reactive in a way an official partner never could. Freedom is the asset, not the rights.
If you want to see the full range of tactics non official brands used this season to lead the conversation, I collected them here: no FIFA rights, no problem. And if you want to understand where campaigns like this rank against the best creative work of the year, this overview is useful: the top 50 China ad campaigns of H1 2026.
How a Western brand can copy this
You do not need to be a dairy giant to use the Yili playbook. You need to find the overlap between what your brand stands for and what your Chinese audience already loves, then express it with local humour.
1. List two things your target Chinese consumer is passionate about right now. Football is one. Find the second.
2. Look for a surprising, funny way to combine them that still fits your product.
3. Make it for a vertical phone screen, watchable in silence, in under fifteen seconds.
4. Leave room for the audience to remix it. A format people can copy is a format people will spread.
5. Do not over brand it. The lighter your logo, the more people share it, and the sharing is where the value sits.
The takeaway
Yili proves that in China creativity beats budget and culture beats rights. The brand won the football season not by buying its way onto the pitch, but by making something Chinese fans genuinely wanted to watch and pass on. For any Western brand that feels priced out of the big global moments in China, that is the most hopeful lesson there is. You cannot outspend the giants. You can out think them.
Source (Chinese): 梅花网, “伊利让顶级球队踢起了功夫足球？” The campaign video, among the most liked football pieces on the platform, blended global football with kung fu comedy to win attention without official tournament rights.
About the author. Philip Chen is CEO of GMA (Gentlemen Marketing Agency), a digital marketing agency focused on the Chinese market. GMA has helped more than 1,000 brands grow in China across Baidu, WeChat, Douyin, Xiaohongshu and cross border e-commerce. Connect with Philip on LinkedIn.
