There was a time when it was very profitable to take advantage of the pull of the Spanish National Team in a World Cup to run promotions. Given the low chances of Spain becoming champion, companies would launch into making tempting promises like “if Spain wins the World Cup, we’ll refund the money for your computer purchase.”
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For many decades, this commercial strategy worked wonders. It served to make people buy products with the false hope that they would get their money back. But that ended in 2010 with the Iniestazo. Just ask the defunct Banesto. In January 2010, that bank launched a deposit that paid 3% of the money deposited after 12 months, but with one condition: if Spain won the World Cup, that interest would be 4%. Result: Spain scored against the Netherlands in the 116th minute, and Banesto had to pay 10 million euros to its customers.
And it’s not the only case. Despite the National Team having one of the best teams in football history and having been European champions two years earlier, confidence in winning a World Cup was rather low in the corporate world. Toshiba risked a significant amount of money by promising to refund all the money for computer and television purchases if the National Team triumphed in South Africa. Result: Vicente del Bosque’s team caused thousands of users who had purchased these products to report to Facua that Toshiba was not keeping its word to refund the money, although it had no choice but to give in.
Despite the company arguing that users had not registered correctly, it had to pay. It was no longer profitable to bet against a team that included stars like Xavi, Iniesta, David Villa, or Iker Casillas.
Currently, companies think twice before running promotions of this type and, if they do, they carry them out with greater caution. This is explained by Pedro Garicano, Marketing Director of Adamo, who has given away a year of fiber optic and mobile to 1,000 new customers: “It cost us 400,000 euros, but it was worth it. We decided to limit it to only 1,000 customers because we knew Spain’s potential. Our financial director was with all the national teams except ours,” he says jokingly to this newspaper.
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And Adamo has not been the only one to take advantage of the pull of Luis de la Fuente’s team, although it has been one of the bravest. Conforama announced that by purchasing a television between May 26 and June 24, it would refund the amount of the television in a voucher to be redeemed in a physical store for the purchase of furniture, decoration, sofas, and mattresses, provided Spain won.
Some more conservative are Bodega Cuatro Rayas, which announced that: “If the Spanish national team is proclaimed champion of the 2026 World Cup, Cuatro Rayas will refund the amount of all purchases made on cuatrorayas.es/tienda between 23:59 on Saturday and 21:00 on Sunday, up to a maximum of 300 euros.”
Even an online candy store, Vidal Golosinas, promised a year of free candy to whoever won the draw among all those who liked their post on X.