In 2018, OMO Sports, Unilever’s detergent brand designed specifically for sportswear, launched one of the most innovative sponsorship campaigns ever seen in football. Instead of placing its logo permanently on a jersey, the brand partnered with Brazilian football giant Corinthians and introduced an invisible sponsorship that only appeared when players started sweating.
Using special hydrochromic ink, the OMO Sports logo remained hidden before kickoff and gradually became visible as the match progressed. The harder the players played, the clearer the sponsorship became. Rather than interrupting the game with advertising, OMO made sweat itself become the media.
Campaign Overview
Comrades Marathon Sponsorship: OMO became the official laundry detergent sponsor of the iconic race.
Green Number Club: Honored runners who completed the marathon 10+ times, celebrating endurance milestones.
Core Message: “Champions aren’t made in clean jerseys. They’re made in sweat, struggle, and stains.”
Hero Film (2018): The Vimeo video dramatized sweat-soaked jerseys, dirt-stained shorts, and determined faces, turning stains into proof of victory.
Campaign Objective
Most sports sponsorships struggle with the same problem—every jersey is filled with logos competing for attention. OMO Sports wanted to do something completely different.
The objective wasn’t simply to increase visibility. The brand wanted to demonstrate exactly why its detergent exists. Since OMO Sports is made to remove sweat and odor from sports clothing, the campaign focused on the one thing every athlete produces during a match: sweat.
The goal was to launch the product in a memorable way, generate organic conversations, and prove that sponsorship can communicate a product benefit instead of just displaying a logo.
Execution
To bring the idea to life, OMO Sports collaborated with Corinthians, one of Brazil’s biggest football clubs. During an official league match, players wore jerseys printed with hydrochromic ink—a special material that reacts to moisture.
When the match began, there was no visible sponsor on the shirts. As players ran, tackled, and sweated, the ink reacted to moisture and slowly revealed the OMO Sports logo.
The reveal happened naturally during live play, leaving fans, commentators, and viewers wondering how the sponsor had suddenly appeared. The curiosity quickly spread across social media, sports news, and advertising publications, turning a simple football match into a global marketing story.
Brand Impact
The Sweat Sponsorship showed that the best advertising doesn’t interrupt an experience—it becomes part of it.
Instead of forcing visibility, OMO earned attention by making its product benefit impossible to ignore. Every appearance of the logo reinforced the message that sweat is inevitable, but cleaning sportswear doesn’t have to be difficult.
The campaign strengthened OMO Sports’ positioning as an innovative sports detergent while proving that sponsorship can be far more powerful when it tells a story rather than simply buying exposure.
Results
OMO’s “The Sweat Sponsorship” campaign delivered strong results across brand visibility, audience engagement, and media impact.
- Reached 21,633 Comrades Marathon runners and millions of spectators along the race route and through broadcast coverage.
- Generated high social media engagement, with widespread participation in the #StayUnbeatable campaign as runners and supporters shared their stories.
- Achieved 115 media impacts, resulting in more than $15 million in earned media value.
- Reached an estimated 18 million live TV viewers, significantly expanding brand exposure.
- Drew over 30,000 spectators to the event in person.
- Sparked approximately 28,000 related Google searches, reflecting increased public interest in the campaign.
- Inspired nearly 2,500 tweets during the event, fueling real-time online conversations.
- Due to its success, OMO renewed its sponsorship through 2028, including support for the historic 100th Comrades Marathon.
Key Marketing Lessons
The Sweat Sponsorship proves that great marketing starts with a simple insight.
Instead of asking “Where should we place our logo?”, OMO asked “When does our product become relevant?” That single shift transformed an ordinary sponsorship into a campaign remembered years later.
The campaign reminds marketers that:
- Product demonstrations are often more memorable than product claims.
- Context can be more valuable than media budget.
- Creativity works best when it’s rooted in a genuine product truth.
- The strongest campaigns don’t just show the brand—they show why the brand matters.
