MAM
Emirates launches global ad campaign for Fifa World Cup
MUMBAI: Emirates Airline has launched its worldwide advertisement campaign to mark its Official Partner status of the 2006 Fifa World Cup. As had been reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com ESPN Star Sports has bagged the broadcast rights for the event in the Indian subcontinent.
Based on Emirates’ successful and award-winning Keep discovering campaign, the advertisements speak the language of the fans and the passion of football in a truly international and global context. The message of the campaign is that wherever you go and whatever cultural background you have, you’ll find people all around the world who have one thing in common: We all speak one language: Football.
The campaign has been developed by Saatchi & Saatchi in Germany. The multi-million dollar advertising campaign comprises TV, cinema, print, outdoor and online. The endeavour sought to tap into the fans’ passion for football as well as reinforcing the nature of Emirates as a global airline through clever and original visuals.
The television ads can be seen across the globe on CNN, BBC World, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Euronews and Eurosport, among others, and will run from now until the end of March. The print campaign which runs in conjunction with the TV ads will be seen in target publications around the world including ‘The Sunday Times’, ‘The Daily Telegraph’, ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ and other major international newspapers.
The advertisements, which are set in four different destinations which Emirates flies to and were rolled out through Emirates’ impressive global network of agencies, represent key regions including Dubai, South Africa, Hong Kong and Italy. In each case the story revolves around travellers discovering they have one thing in common which unites them with the locals in each destination – a love of football.
Emirates claims that fans in online polls across Europe have responded well. Readers of Italy’s W&V – a marketing, advertising and media publication and Germany’s TV Spielfilm which provides dope on TV programmes have both voted the advertisement as among their favourites on air.
The ads are themed around the image of a person running with his arms outstretched, mimicking an aircraft, which cleverly combines the culture of football with the awareness of Emirates Airline. The company’s corporate communications department is working closely with more than 100 PR and advertising agencies around our network to optimise the investment made in the sponsorship of the World Cup.
Emirates’ sponsorship of the 2006 Fifa World Cup is a major part of the airline’s ongoing marketing focus of using sports sponsorship as a way to reach to its passengers and to connect directly with them. The aim is to get the message across that Emirates is a truly global brand.
Emirates’ chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum said, “For Emirates, sponsorship is an important means of reaching out to our passengers worldwide, through sharing and supporting their interests. Our massive investment in football underscores our confidence in the continued international growth of Emirates, and in the growth of Dubai as a regional hub for business, tourism and sports.”
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
