Campaign Spotlight: TikTok Match Day Market Campaign
TikTok’s Match Day Market brought football fans together for a weekend celebrating one of the sport’s biggest cultural moments. Hosted at the American Dream Mall, the campaign activation connected creators, brands, and fans through live panna challenges, exclusive giveaways, and a range of engaging touchpoints, including the chance to get hold of a custom-branded TikTok jersey.
POP played a central role in bringing the experience to life, leading program strategy, creative development, print production, animated and lifestyle video content, and go-to-market promotional assets. To learn more about how it all came together, we spoke with Theodore Patrick McFail, Senior Account Manager US, who helped steer the project from concept through execution. Working across integrated brand experiences and large-scale activations, Theodore brings expertise in connecting strategy and creativity to deliver engaging campaigns, making him the perfect choice to share the story behind TikTok’s Match Day Market.
What was your role in this campaign?
I was the Senior Account Manager managing day-to-day operations and coordinating across strategy, creative, production, and partner agencies to bring the activation to life. Given the complexity of this experiential activation, I also stepped into a producer role to manage vendor coordination, on-site logistics, and the multiple moving pieces that this type of program requires.
How did POP’s expertise and our team make a difference in this campaign?
We managed end-to-end production from concept through execution, working with our partners from 329 Events for seamless delivery. Our team developed a strategic campaign framework tailored to TikTok’s business objectives and their brand partners’ needs, then brought that strategy to life through creative execution from concept design through the final build-out of the physical space and all supporting assets.
We took an audience-first approach, designing the experience to serve three distinct groups: TikTok’s brand advertisers, invited creators, and soccer fans attending the activation. This required balancing different objectives while creating a cohesive experience. We also built a scalable model that could be adapted for future executions in different markets. Throughout the campaign, we leveraged Vermeer, our proprietary AI platform, to generate original still and video content that supported the activation and extended its reach beyond the physical space.
What was the most challenging part of this campaign? And the most rewarding?
The challenge was coordinating across multiple stakeholders (vendors, brand sponsors, creators, location, and internal teams) to deliver a cohesive experience that met everyone’s objectives while staying on timeline and budget. Clear communication and disciplined project management were critical to hitting all KPIs.
The most rewarding part was watching the activation come to life. With experiential work, you’re transforming a two-dimensional concept into a three-dimensional space that people actually walk through and engage with. Seeing fans interact with the brands, creators producing content on-site, and the energy of the space during a major cultural moment made the months of planning worthwhile. These activations are temporary by nature, which makes capturing the moment through content and documentation even more important.
How did you design the event structure to consider different audiences, like fans and creators, to make the event a success?
We were designing for three distinct audiences: TikTok (our client), their brand advertisers, and the creators and fans who would attend. This required us to layer objectives at every stage of strategy, creative, and execution. We structured the space to offer brand moments that worked for content creation while also being engaging for walk-in fans. External communications were tailored by audience segment, and on-site staffing and programming were planned to support both branded content capture and organic fan engagement. The goal was to create an experience where each audience got value without compromising the others.
How does an experiential activation like this compare to working on a campaign that will go out across OOH, digital, television, and other formats?
Experiential doesn’t replace traditional channels; it adds to them. To drive attendance and awareness, we still produced OOH video content, digital assets, cross-promotional email campaigns, social posts, and landing pages. The difference is that the activation becomes the centerpiece, and all other formats drive to or amplify that physical experience. Success metrics shift to include foot traffic, on-site engagement, and content capture in addition to impressions and reach.
What lesson(s) will you take from this project into future projects?
The importance of building trust with clients and partner agencies early, especially in fast-paced environments where creative and logistics are evolving simultaneously. When everyone is aligned on objectives and communication is proactive, you can move quickly without sacrificing quality. This project reinforced that delivering on (and exceeding) business goals requires both strategic rigor and operational flexibility.
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