On Saturday, France and England fought through a ten-goal match for third place at the World Cup. England won 6–4. When it ended, players and coaches met with handshakes and hugs. It felt competitive, emotional, respectful. Then came Sunday’s final, and it became a striking lesson in how quickly brand perception can change.
I had bought into the excitement around Messi and Argentina. It was easy to want one last extraordinary chapter for the greatest player of his generation, perhaps in his final World Cup appearance. But Spain was the better team, and it deserved to win. Argentina’s frustration began to take over before the match was finished. Enzo Fernández was sent off in stoppage time after receiving a second yellow card. Spain scored in extra time and won 1–0. After the final whistle, the situation deteriorated into a confrontation involving players from both teams, which FIFA is now investigating. Around two billion people were reportedly watching.
My perception of Argentina changed in those final minutes, which is exactly how quickly brand perception can turn. Not of Messi’s talent or achievements, but of the team and what it represented. I suspect I was not alone. That is the uncomfortable reality of branding. A reputation can take years to build, but public perception does not change gradually. Sometimes it flips in a single moment.
How brand perception changes
Walter Landor, one of the founders of modern brand consulting, once said that products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind. What he understood, and what Argentina demonstrated on Sunday, is that those mental constructs are fragile. They do not follow the logic of accumulated effort or balanced scorecards. They follow the logic of memory, and memory privileges intensity over frequency. One vivid moment can outweigh a decade of consistency.
When one moment redefines a brand
The same sudden reversal in brand perception has happened far beyond sports. Consider Volkswagen. The company spent years selling clean diesel as an environmentally responsible alternative. It built advertising campaigns around that promise, earned regulatory praise, and attracted a customer base that believed they were making a conscientious choice. Then came the emissions scandal, and the discovery that Volkswagen had installed software designed to cheat emissions tests. The promise did not just lose credibility. It became evidence of calculated dishonesty. The story did not disappear. It inverted.
BP invested heavily in presenting itself as environmentally progressive, rebranding from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum and spending hundreds of millions on campaigns around renewable energy. Then came Deepwater Horizon, and images of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico for months. The brand did not lose its environmental message. The message became a punchline.
United Airlines became globally associated with one violent video of a passenger being dragged from an aircraft in 2017. The incident lasted seconds. The reputational damage lasted years. None of these incidents erased everything the brands had accomplished. They simply created a new association strong enough to compete with everything that came before, and in many cases, strong enough to win.
Argentina and the cost of losing control
Argentina had built a remarkable story around Messi: talent, perseverance, national pride, redemption. But everyone wearing the shirt contributes to that story. The actions of a few teammates can reshape the team’s public perception and even cast a shadow over someone who was not responsible.
That may be unfair. Branding often is. Brand perception is not formed through a carefully balanced list of achievements and mistakes.
They remember the moment that made them feel something.
On Sunday, Argentina lost the match. For me, it also lost something far more difficult to win back.
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