There is something charmingly literal about the way American marketers approach foreign stars. When in doubt, make them bigger.

Lowe's, the home improvement chain that has been steadily building its sports marketing portfolio in recent years, is deploying 10-foot-tall inflatable replicas of Lionel Messi to four American cities hosting World Cup matches this summer. The inflatables are part of a broader campaign tied to the retailer's loyalty program, which Lowe's first connected to Mr. Messi when it signed him as a spokesman in 2024.

"This is not going to be just a TV commercial," said Gerardo Soto, Lowe's vice president of media and sports marketing. "Soccer is a passion. Soccer is a common language that crosses cultures and nationalities, and it's all going to converge here on the largest stage."

Mr. Soto, who oversees a portfolio that also includes basketball and football sponsorships, said the Messi partnership was designed from the start around the loyalty program. The logic is not complicated: soccer fans are loyal to players, and no player commands more loyalty than Mr. Messi, who is widely considered one of the finest to have played the game. (The inflatables, presumably, are loyal to helium.)

The strategy appears to be working, at least by Lowe's internal metrics. Mr. Soto said that previous merchandise drops tied to the partnership had converted roughly 30 percent of nonmembers into loyalty program sign-ups. The company reported $20.6 billion in sales in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from $18.6 billion a year earlier, and has projected annual sales growth of 7 to 9 percent for 2026.

There is also a longer play here, Mr. Soto acknowledged. Soccer skews younger and more multicultural than football, and Lowe's is aware that the children wearing Messi jerseys at birthday parties today will eventually need to buy drill bits and weatherstripping.

"We know how kids are influencing their parents into what they buy," Mr. Soto said. "If we can get to kids and offer them value at Lowe's, they're going to push their parents to visit us."

It is, in other words, a home improvement project with a 15-year timeline — which is, come to think of it, about how long most of us take to finish the basement anyway.

Original story published in Marketing Brew: "For its World Cup campaign, Lowe’s is betting big on Messi—literally"