For this year's World Cup, we turned Zebra Technologies' invisible infrastructure — RFID, machine vision, mobile computing — into a story journalists and fans could actually feel: press activations in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico that let reporters experience, not just hear about, how technology keeps shelves stocked when demand spikes overnight.

There's a moment in every purchase — the frictionless payment, the product that was actually on the shelf, the package that arrives on time — where an unseen technology comes into play. That was exactly the territory we chose for Zebra Technologies during this World Cup: turning the invisible into a story that journalists, customers, and prospects could understand, feel, and retell.

The communications challenge

Zebra doesn't sell a mass-market consumer product. It sells infrastructure: RFID, machine vision, mobile computing, and identification systems that operate behind every retail transaction. This is technology that's decisive for a company's competitiveness, yet it can't be fully explained in a five-minute interview — let alone to a non-technical audience.

The world's biggest football championship gave us the narrative key we needed. Rather than explaining the technology in the abstract, we anchored it to something every audience — journalists, customers, fans — was already experiencing: the year's peak consumption season, with unpredictable demand spikes tied to how national teams performed on the field. If a last-minute goal can empty a shelf of official jerseys the next day, the natural question becomes: what's behind the scenes that makes that jersey available?

The strategy: press activations in three countries

We designed and delivered press activations with journalists in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, each tailored to the editorial interests of its market. The throughline was the same: show the complete journey of a product — from factory to shelf — and let journalists experience, not just hear about, how artificial intelligence, RFID, and machine vision reduce errors, speed up processes, and eliminate friction at the point of purchase.

Two elements proved decisive:

  • Immersive technology labs, where journalists directly handled the devices — from smart scanners to radio-frequency identification systems — instead of simply seeing them in a presentation.
  • The Experience Center in Brazil, which allowed visitors to physically walk through every stage of the chain: manufacturing, logistics, and retail, as a single connected process.

Together, these turned an abstract concept — "smart operations" — into something tangible: something people could touch, follow, and, above all, tell a story about.

The results

The resulting coverage — in logistics and technology trade media across Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico — accurately translated Zebra's technical complexity into stories that both business and technology audiences could understand: from the challenge of anticipating demand during the tournament to automation's quiet role in every everyday purchase. The World Cup narrative worked as a bridge between a complex product and a broad audience, without sacrificing technical rigor or reducing the message to an opportunistic sports-marketing gesture.

The lesson for other B2B brands

This case confirms something we apply consistently across our work with technology, industrial, and financial services clients: a mass cultural event can be the best entry point for explaining complex technology, as long as the connection is genuine rather than forced.

For companies whose technology operates "behind the scenes," the communications challenge is never just about informing. It's about finding the right cultural moment to make the essential visible.

Does your brand have a key technology or process the market struggles to grasp? Let's talk.