Throughout the trip, Wrexham women’s sponsors, including Blake Lively’s Betty Buzz sparkling soda, the McElhenny co-owned Four Walls Whiskey, Gatorade, HP Inc., STōK Cold Brew Coffee and United Airlines, will be making their presence known and reminding other suitors that when they buy into Wrexham, they buy into all of it—men’s team, women’s team, supporters group, show, tours and beyond.
“Smart partners understand how we’re uniquely able to harness the power of storytelling across that whole community to show what their brand stands for well beyond a logo on the sidelines,” McElhenney said.
Making an early Ally
Ally has supported Wrexham AFC since Season 1 of Welcome to Wrexham and also partners with The Soccer Tournament. Previously committing to a 50/50 split of its sports marketing resources between men’s and women’s sports, Ally saw an opportunity with Wrexham to fulfill that pledge during a year lacking the Women’s World Cup or a similar women’s sports-specific event.
“It’s a story that has scale and appeal that gives you a bigger stage to communicate the narrative around equity in women’s sports,” Ally CMO Andrea Brimmer told ADWEEK. “I thought about Wrexham as an entertainment platform that had broader appeal and broader scale, where I could reach a lot of men to tell the story as well, so we thought about it very differently in that it wasn’t just a ‘sports sponsorship.’ It became a communication platform by which to shine a light on the work that needed to be done.”
Discussions between Ally and Wrexham began just before the most recent season of Welcome to Wrexham aired and in the wake of the men’s “USA Invasion” tour last summer. In Season 4, however, Brimmer and McElhenney used time within Welcome to Wrexham to highlight Ally’s mission and to preview the upcoming tour—with Disney promoting the segment in all of its Wrexham social media channels.
Does it matter that Ally’s U.S. online bank may never do business with Wrexham’s Welsh supporters? Not really, Brimmer posited, as the exposure for Ally from the show and the introduction of a larger segment of U.S. viewers to both the Wrexham women’s team and live soccer made it worthwhile.