The power of advertising?

With the world cup of soccer underway, I am intrigued by the economics of this huge undertaking. I was struck by the fact all the advertisements on the sideboards are by multi-billion dollar corporations and they are mostly American. For a second I thought, why are these American companies advertising on a world stage?

Being bit slow, slowly I realised that most of the audience of the world cup will be in the third world (South America, Africa and Asia), where McDonald's can sell its healthy fare and Coca-Cola can wash them down with their sugary syrups.

All most all the first world corporations have realised that they have saturated their markets. My favourite, McDonald's have disclosed that they couldn't supersize their profits anymore. They figured that, the only way they could satiate their share holders' hunger for more calories oops dollars is to expand into the developing world. What's a better way than to advertise in this mega event where every self respecting 12 year old soccer player would be parked before the TV set?

Capitalists amongsts us would say, "what's wrong with doing business and making a few bucks?" Read on my fellow capitalists:

FIFA also wants to make sure it has tight control over the 12 official fan festivals in the host cities. Because Coca-Cola is one of the four major sponsors of the fan festivals, even milk became a hotly contested issue for some time. The soft drink maker had secured exclusivity for the entire beverage category, which covers just about anything liquid, except soups, tap water and non-alcoholic beer.

After lengthy negotiations, the US corporate giant magnanimously (emphasis mine) agreed to allow "non-flavored milk beverages" -- in plain language, cows' milk. However, FIFA and Coca-Cola will have the final say on the "branding" of that flavor-free cows' milk.

After reading that, I would'nt able to see the world cup and drink Coke without feeling guilty! Well, on the other hand watching world cup Cricket sponsored by Burger King and drinking Pepsi is still Kosher.