The Home Depot sees Hispanic market as a ‘huge growth opportunity’

Customers often come to The Home Depot and other home improvement retailers to solve a problem or take on a project — especially working professionals like remodelers, painters, electricians, plumbers and other contractors.

Taryn Dominie, senior director and head of industry for Orange Apron Media — The Home Depot’s retail media network — said the diversity of the growing soccer fan base mirrors that of its customer base, especially among its pro customers. “A good majority of our pro customers are multicultural, and [The World Cup] just gives us a way to really connect in a deeper, more meaningful way with those pro customers,” she said.

Hispanics make up around 30% of the construction workforce in the U.S, and U.S. Hispanic consumers surveyed by Nielsen in 2024 or 2025 were 87% more likely to say they had watched a World Cup qualifier match in the past 12 months, according to a 2025 Nielsen report. Hispanic individuals are also 39% more likely than the total population to be avid Major League Soccer fans, Nielsen found.

Molly Battin, svp and CMO of The Home Depot, told the Hispanic Marketing Council last month that the company expects “multicultural” customers — led by Latinos — to make up more than 40% of the home improvement category by 2040. “We see the Hispanic market and the Latino community as a huge growth opportunity for The Home Depot,” she said.

For Orange Apron, sports marketing in general has also been an opportunity to drive deeper partnerships with supplier partners through big cultural moments. The company has done College Game Day partnerships over the years as well as deals with MLS, the U.S. men’s national soccer team, March Madness and NCAA, Dominie said. “We’re talking about partnerships that extend beyond our traditional media, whether it be digital or linear, to real, grassroots fan engagement opportunities.”

Orange Apron’s involvement in the World Cup has included in-person events and in-store activations, primarily featuring the paint brand Behr and the power tools manufacturer Makita. Centering its activations around just a couple of brands has allowed Orange Apron to co-create more interactive and tailored experiences, Dominie said.

The Home Depot has hosted interactive houses called “Beckham’s Backyard” at official FIFA Fan Festivals that featured Behr and Makita, allowing them to have a presence at official FIFA events in cities such as Atlanta without being official FIFA sponsors. The activations are named after former soccer player and club owner David Beckham, who also has appeared in national commercials and digital content for The Home Depot during the World Cup.

The activations included a Behr-sponsored digital target-practice game where fans kicked soccer balls, as well as a Makita-hosted station where guests could decorate paper fans, according to Sports Business Journal.

The retailer also collaborated with soccer media network Men In Blazers on a bus that doubles as a studio for Men In Blazers. It has been traveling to World Cup host cities, with signage featuring Behr and Makita. In stores, The Home Depot offered a custom FIFA scarf to customers who bought certain Makita power tools. Outside of the advertising business, on the enterprise level, The Home Depot was doing in-store integrations around the World Cup with sweepstakes components and ticket giveaway opportunities.

“We really went into this knowing that we wanted an integrated, fully omnichannel experience that we were creating for our customers and in partnership with our brands,” Dominie said.

The Home Depot is also having a bus going around to different cities in the U.S. for watch parties where fans and pro customers can participate in events such as T-shirt giveaways and cornhole tournaments, also presented by Behr and Makita. “We want it to be more fun, because it’s a watch party, essentially, but still an opportunity for Behr to engage their top pros, engage the traditional DIY fan base, and talk about what makes Behr and Makita special and relevant — and do it in kind of a fun way, with giveaways and some engaging activities during those fan fests.”

Dominie said The Home Depot has not yet measured the success of the World Cup partnerships, as it is still ongoing, but plans to look at brand lift and purchase intent. She added, however, that the company has found co-branded sports sponsorship programs can increase purchase intent by as much as 40%.

“It’s truly a partnership where we align on common goals, and we co-create opportunities to create value for our customers and [clients’] customers, and create meaningful moments that are unique to what only we can do together,” Dominie said. “It goes beyond sponsorship, and it’s about partnership.”

Andrew Lipsman, a retail media industry analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce, said that because advertising has moved toward digital performance media, it can be easy to forget that good advertising works through cultural relevance and high-quality content reaching wide audiences — such as through experiential marketing and national TV advertising.

“When you can reach the right audiences … and show that there is that alignment around common events or common cultural moments, it creates brand affinity,” Lipsman said. “That brand affinity doesn’t have to translate into a sale at the store at that moment; it just makes you slightly more inclined to visit that store and slightly more inclined to purchase a brand over time.”

Ace Hardware has also found that a high share of its customers are interested in sports such as soccer and baseball, according to Tyler Lusebrink, head of brand partnerships at RedVest Media, Ace Hardware’s retail media division that launched last year.

“Our focus generally has been: How can we partner with our brand partners to really take advantage of capturing some of that engagement from customers during this big cultural moment?” Lusebrink said. Brands wanting to take advantage of the World Cup are executing full-funnel campaigns with “a heavy lean into off-site programmatic, broad awareness-type tactics that can engage with customers throughout their journey,” he added.

These aren’t necessarily campaigns with creative themed around the World Cup — Ace Hardware is not an official sponsor — but they may amplify national messaging that brands are already pushing to reach customers who may be watching the World Cup and related content. ACE Hardware has a media partnership with Epsilon to deploy assets across websites across the web.

“We see the World Cup in cultural moments like this as an opportunity for brands to engage with the customer directly in a high-intent mindset,” Lusebrink said. “They’re online, they’re doing research, they’re looking at game recaps and highlights, and brands know that they can get in front of consumers and engage with them to drive them into their brand.”