This story is part of our week-long editorial series on how major retailers, fashion conglomerates, beauty brands and CPG startups are leveraging this year’s biggest-ever FIFA World Cup to their advantage.On June 16, Lionel Messi will appear at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium to begin his sixth and potentially final World Cup campaign. Four years ago, the living soccer legend led Argentina to victory at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Now, Argentina will play its opening game in the 2026 North America-based edition of the international soccer tournament against Algeria, with the 38-year-old Messi still the undisputed star of the South American squad.
Messi will also be appearing at a Kansas Ulta Beauty store — sort of. On Friday, the soccer star’s namesake fragrance brand will host a giveaway for the launch of the Messi Elixir fragrance, where select attendees will be able to snag Messi fragrance swag and sign up for a chance to win a signed Messi jersey.
“There’s no one more famous, more energetic, who pulls in people more than Messi does,” said Christine Blau, svp of brand and retail strategy at fragrance distributor Sheralven. Sheralven launched the original Messi fragrance in 2024 at JCPenney. With the 2026 World Cup on the horizon, the brand expanded to Ulta Beauty with the launch of the Messi Elixir Parfum Intense in April. “He’s got 500 million followers on Instagram alone. So we said, we would be extremely foolish to not capitalize off of that.”
