Asda has won praise for capturing “the mood of the moment” after renaming its George brand as Jorge and bringing in Spain flags, “Vamos España” signs and flamenco dancers to cheer on the Spanish football team before their 1-0 victory over Argentina in the New York final.
Posts about the temporary rebrand went viral on social media with people calling it “10/10 marketing”, “pure brilliance” and “an absolute masterclass in real-time PR”.
Spain’s extra-time win, sealed by a late goal by Ferran Torres, was described by BBC Sport as a “victory of football” after a series of controversies around Argentina’s style of play and behaviour at the tournament.
Asda tapped into the mood of so many neutrals before the Spain-Argentina final with a series of colourful Jorge posts on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok suggesting that Asda had ‘woken up Spanish’, that then racked up more than five million views and 90,000 likes.
Viral content aggregator and meme account The Archbishop of Banterbury posted about the rebrand on Instagram, getting more than 70,000 likes from their 4.5 million followers and comments like: “This is giving maximum British humour” and “Elite level pettiness and I love it”.
Andrew Barton who runs the TikTok accounts @foodwithasb (290,000 followers) and @newswithandrew (648,000 followers) got more than half a million views and 40,000 likes on two posts about the Spanish makeover of the George standalone store at Leeds Crown Point ahead of Sunday’s final. He said: “There is Spanish flags absolutely everywhere. I love this from Asda so much… honestly Spain had better win this World Cup.”
And the Jorge rebrand is winning plaudits on LinkedIn too: “Not Asda rebranding George (clothing) to ‘Jorge’ ahead of tomorrow’s World Cup final…. We love to see brands.”
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