How We Captured the World Cup Through Fans’ Eyes Using Self-Filmed Video

There’s a moment every football fan knows. The whistle hasn’t blown yet, but the room already feels electric. For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, we set out to capture the side of the tournament that never makes it to television: the living rooms, the sofas, the pub gatherings and the roar when the ball hits the back of the net.

We recruited a panel of passionate England fans and asked them to create self-filmed video diaries documenting their entire matchday experience. These video diaries captured everything from pre-match nerves through to the final whistle, creating an authentic record of how supporters experienced the tournament in real time.

Major events like the FIFA World Cup create a unique opportunity for brands, researchers and organisations to understand people as they naturally behave. For a few weeks, millions of people share the same emotional journey, reacting together in homes, pubs and communities across the country.

Video diaries allow researchers to observe those genuine moments as they unfold. Rather than asking people to recall how they felt days later, participants document their experiences in real time, creating richer, more authentic qualitative insight.

For research and insight teams, this approach reveals behaviours, emotions and context that are often missed through traditional research methods. For marketing teams, the same self-filmed content becomes authentic user-generated content (UGC) that audiences genuinely connect with.

Delivering a project at tournament speed required more than just a great idea. It required the right participants.

Thanks to our international database of pre-vetted participants, we were able to recruit engaged England supporters within days rather than weeks. Because we manage our own participant community, we could carefully select people based on their personalities, viewing habits, household dynamics and enthusiasm for the tournament, creating a diverse mix of contributors whose stories felt genuine rather than staged.

This rapid recruitment process meant we could move quickly from briefing participants to filming, ensuring every video diary captured authentic reactions while the tournament was still unfolding.

One of the greatest strengths of self-filmed video diaries is speed.

Unlike traditional film shoots, participants can record themselves wherever they are, using their own devices, without a production crew influencing their behaviour. This makes video diaries an incredibly effective methodology for qualitative research, consumer insight, customer experience studies and ethnographic research, allowing brands to observe real-life behaviour in natural environments.

Whether documenting reactions to a football match, testing a new product or recording day-to-day experiences, self-filmed video creates richer stories because participants remain in control of the camera and the moment.

For more than 35 years, we’ve helped organisations understand how people think, feel and behave through authentic video research.

From major sporting events to product launches, healthcare studies, retail research and customer experience programmes, we’ve developed video diary projects that reveal the moments that matter most.

It’s these real, unscripted moments that create the strongest insight and the most engaging stories.

Whether you’re conducting qualitative research, evaluating a new product, measuring customer experience or creating an authentic marketing campaign, video diaries provide a powerful way to capture real behaviour as it happens. Combined with our participant panel, international recruitment and in-house production team, we can deliver high-quality self-filmed video at speed.

If you’re looking to capture authentic experiences through self-filmed video diaries, we’d love to help. Get in touch to discuss your next research or marketing project and discover how our video diary service can bring your audience’s stories to life.