Wrexham AFC’s Branding Strategy (2022)

Analysing the branding strategy of Wrexham AFC, and the meteoric rise in popularity.

Kapferer (2009, pp.7) states that a brand is the relationship customers have with the brand (from total indifference to attachment, loyalty, and willingness to buy and rebuy based on beliefs of superiority and evoked emotions). Kapferer’s definition strongly focuses on consumer behaviour as consumers will pay more for a brand's products and services because of the beliefs created over time by an organisation's brand strategy (Kapferer, 2009). However, the American Marketing Association (AMA) (2022) define a brand as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers. This definition differs as the AMA states the components that make up a brand, whereas Kapferer’s definition indulges into the levels of consumer behaviour (Keller, Apéria and Georgson, 2008). 

The above can apply to Wrexham as a successful strategy can enable the club to charge a premium price on merchandise such as home kits due to increased demand, which will increase revenue, therefore, improving brand equity. However, competition domestically and abroad may create challenges for Wrexham. Wrexham engages in direct competition, which refers to two or more companies selling the same products or services to the same target market (Ibragimov and Khurramov, 2015, p. 22).

This report will critically analyse and reflect on the current strategies Wrexham use by analysing how consumer demand has increased, their sponsorships and social media marketing strategies. 

Wrexham AFC’s Audience and Consumers (2022)

Wrexham AFC audience and consumers have altered over the last couple of seasons. According to the BBC (2022) ‘Season ticket sales are up 20%, standing at 7,118 this season, compared with 5,892 for 2021-2022 - and that doubled from 2,609 season tickets sold for 2019/20’. According to Wrexham’s official website their stadium capacity for sport is 10,500 (Wrexham AFC, 2022). This means Wrexham’s season ticket holders amount to 68% of their home support. 

The reason for the dramatic increase in ticket sales over the past 2 seasons can be linked to the takeover of the club from Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, as they bought the club on February 9th, 2021 (Wrexham AFC, 2022). This new ownership has allowed greater opportunities for exposure and sponsorship, meaning Wrexham’s audience and consumers has since grown exponentially whilst also keeping their core fan base. 

The introduction of new sponsors TikTok combined with the new documentary on streaming service Disney Plus ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ (Disney Plus, 2022), demonstrates how the team based in Wales brand has been completely transformed, which has led to a growth in their audience and consumers.

The internationalisation of Wrexham is apparent with their website traffic coming from countries all over the globe such as the United States, Australia, Canada and Denmark. This increases potential new lifetime repeat consumers for the Welsh club, providing them the opportunity to diversify their product offerings to capitalise on this. When compared to 2nd place Notts County and 3rd place Chesterfield in figure 2, it is clear to see that no other team in their league and similar ecosystem are coming close to what Wrexham are achieving. 

Wrexham has the most website visits in all selected countries compared to other teams at the same level in the footballing pyramid. UK with 54%, US with 98.9%, Australia with 99.2%, Canada with 98% and Denmark with 100%. This illustrates the competitive advantage the takeover has provided Wrexham regarding reaching a greater global audience. Not only has it improved the domestic fanbase with improved home attendances/season ticket buys, but now Wrexham are reaching a bigger fanbase around the world with their Disney+ documentary. 

Wrexham AFC confirm during the period 24th August – 20th September when the documentary first aired, ‘The followers of the Club’s social media have increased by 19.2% and it is likely that we will pass through the 1,000,000 followers’ threshold before the 1st series of the documentary concludes’ (Wrexham AFC, 2022).

Wrexham AFC’s current marketing strategy of capitalising on current trends, such as streaming, TikTok and gamification are certainly elevating their brand. This can be confirmed by Wrexham AFC (2022) as they state that ‘The Club’s retail website has seen 185,289 new visitors during the period, who have made a total of 3543 orders at a combined value of £290,170. These amazing results do not include sales from the Club shop. When these sales are combined with the above, the receipts for the period increased to £360,000. By comparison the combined receipts for the equivalent period, 12 months earlier, were £59,674’.

These figures combined with the SimilarWeb results provides clarity that what Wrexham AFC are doing with their brand is not only helping with their core audience and fan base but is also helping reach a new level of global audience, something which a team so low in the footballing pyramid in the UK has never done before. 

Social Media Strategy

In terms of Wrexham AFC’s social media and marketing strategy, it is certainly up there with the best in the footballing ecosystem despite their relatively low place in the football pyramid.

The official Wrexham AFC TikTok page boasts over 490,000 followers and over 4.6 million likes (TikTok, 2022). Wrexham AFC play in the National League (BBC, 2022), as do Notts County and Woking FC, who have 2266 (TikTok, 2022) and 1718 (TikTok, 2022) followers respectively, meaning they have 100x more followers than both clubs combined.

The club utilises their Hollywood star owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds (Baxter, 2022) to leverage its brand on social media and in general marketing activities. They add value to the club through not only investment but voiceover commentaries of games on social media and many interactions with fans in the town of Wrexham, such as going to pubs with fans (Everitt, 2022) and putting over 300 drinks behind the bar as a sign of their appreciation (ITV, 2022).

These acts from the owners develop brand loyalty with their fanbase, linking to Post (2000), that ‘the idea is not to sell something, but to demonstrate how a brand can enrich a customer’s life’. Showing the fans that the owners care about the club and value of its supporters only bolsters positive brand equity.

As previously mentioned, the club have released a documentary series on the ownership and rise of the club on Disney Plus, called ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ (Disney Plus, 2022), showing behind-the-scenes footage of the inner workings of the club, similar to the Amazon Prime ‘All or Nothing’ style. This links to Gladden’s (2008) Brand Equity in the sports setting framework.

They are using a product-related antecedent (their owners), to improve and increase brand equity, and because of this; Wrexham’s national media exposure will increase, as will their increasing ticket and merchandise sales organically due to this exposure. All of these combined will increase the marketplace perception of the club, strengthening their brand for the future.

The club’s TikTok and general marketing strategy can be linked to the Brand Value Chain framework (Keller, Aperia and Georgson, 2012, pp. 382).

The club is utilising its owners as their marketing campaign investment. It is important to use notable individuals in a marketing strategy as some brands have achieved a 20% growth in sales because of celebrity endorsement (Nielsen Sports, 2014). This has improved the campaign quality tenfold due to the distinctiveness and originality of the strategy, giving them original authenticity in terms of Gilmore and Pine’s (2007) authenticity model.

Wrexham has a good customer mindset, as the awareness and attitudes are almost global and positive in nature, backed up by their 4 million TikTok likes and hundreds of thousands of followers; plus, utilising current trends to cultivate a wider audience. The marketplace conditions are favourable as they dwarf competitors with their social followings.

These all improve market performance and coupling with the fact that they are currently top of the table (BBC, 2022) both on-pitch and off-pitch performance will improve their price elasticity. Securing promotion into the football league will improve investor sentiment as it will increase the club’s growth potential and lower its risk profile, due to increased financial rewards from footballing performance and more media coverage as they climb the footballing pyramid.

These facets all join to increase value to shareholders, making Wrexham AFC a viable and noteworthy football club to invest time and money into, both as a fan and as an investor; this will only strengthen brand positioning and perceptions, deepening the connection and brand loyalty with their fanbase.

Club Branding and Sponsorships

Wrexham AFC has many prominent sponsors from TikTok - which markets where they are currently pushing the club. A social media platform enables them to create a continuum of the digital aspect that Ryan Reynolds’ has initiated, as well as Vista Print which markets itself as a helping hand to small businesses, which allows them to social media platforms and get involved within the local community (Neville, 2022).

Vista Prints’ involvement within the brand is associated with Keller’s (1993) Customer-Based Brand Equity Model (CBBE) which identifies the consumer as having an emotional connection to the brand, this is due to the USP which Vista Print pride itself in, being the company for local businesses, hence Wrexham having plenty of supporters who live locally to the football club and could benefit from such products and services offered.  

Wrexham’s utilisation of green and white with a Dragon resembles the Welsh National Team, this shows the nation they play their football out of, although in the English Football Pyramid they keep their traditions of where they are located. The red dragon is a symbol of the area, with the fans showing pride in the football club as they would in the Welsh National Team, which links into the CBBE Model (Keller, 1993) which provides an emotional attachment to the football brand.  

In terms of Wrexham’s merchandise, the sales figures have rocketed to sell outs (Wrexham AFC, 2022) with recent acquisitions of their Disney + documentary as well as sponsorship through Expedia and TikTok which are prominent on it.

The designs of the jerseys resemble the historic value of the football club, with the home jersey being red and showing a red dragon which relates back to the original badge and Welsh origin. The white third jersey is white, green, and red which resembles the Welsh national flag colours. This confirms that Wrexham has thought about the community and audience they are targeting, keeping the traditional feel to the football club even though there have been various changes making it into a more globalised brand in the sporting industry.

This engages with Robertson’s (1992) Glocalisation theory, where instead of positioning global and local as opposites he sees them as complementary to each other. Robertson’s (1995) theory defines the global brand as being constituted by and constitutive of the local. This incorporates with Wrexham AFC as Ryan Reynold’s takeover has seen sponsorships amongst many other changes interact with the brand but keeping the clubs’ traditions has been key to the identity that the brand has, with the link to Wales this shows the type of football brand Wrexham AFC strives to be, keeping the community at the heart of the football club whilst engaging with fans from a wider scope.

Wrexham coming onto the global stage has allowed them to propel to a new audience type who engage with the brand, whilst keeping the emotional attachment to the local fans as described in Keller’s (1993) CBBE model of emotional attachment.  

Competitors and Inspiration

Despite being a pioneer in their marketing strategy, in recent months and years, there has been an increasing number of comparisons to be made between similar marketing and branding campaigns from other National League and Football League clubs.

Wrexham identified TikTok as a social media platform to target a large variety of consumers, which is a strategy that has been implemented by Crawley Town under their new ownership. Directors Eben Smith and Preston Johnson want to “offer unprecedented access to local as well as remote fans” (MacInnes, 2022), which is evident through their use of TikTok to gather attention towards Crawley.

Crawley announced that Sidemen member Tobi Brown, ‘TBJZL’, was to take part in training with the first team alongside his brother and YouTuber Manny. This has been a controversial, yet successful approach as each video featuring the two YouTuber’s has been viewed over a million times, with one video being viewed 3.7 million times since its release (@officialcrawleytownfc, 2022).

Similarly, Wrexham’s use of celebrities on TikTok is equally successful, as videos featuring Hollywood owners Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds also consistently have views over a million views, with the kit reveal gaining 1.2 million views (@wrexham_afc, 2022).

Another similar usage of social media to promote their club is National League rivals Dorking Wanderers, who have quickly climbed the non-league pyramid. Part of this rapid rise is because of their output of content on social media, which has no doubt opened multiple sources of revenue. The documentary series which follows the club throughout the season on TikTok is released on the account ‘Bunch of Amateurs’ and sees the content be viewed by tens and hundreds of thousands (@bunch_amateurs, 2022).

Relating to Wilson & Fowler’s Digital Platform and CRM Model (Wilson & Fowler, 2016), this strategy brings fans closer to the live action with behind-the-scenes content as well as game footage, which is rarely broadcast on TV at that level of competition. This insight that Wrexham and other clubs provide through their social media is a major component in attracting new fans, as well as retaining and keeping happy current fans and consumers. 

Based on Kapferer’s (2009, pp.7) definition of a brand is the relationship consumers have with the brand, therefore using personable and exciting behind-the-scenes content on social media that is easily accessible by all of its audience is a highly effective way to engage consumers and to grow this relationship, which is evident through the success of other club’s use of this strategy within the football eco-system. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, the club's branding strategy has had an extremely positive impact on the club, as strategies such as the Disney Plus docuseries and TikTok content has seen a massive increase in engagement across the world, compared to prior the takeover by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

Not only are these strategies being used to promote the club, but they are being used by the owners to develop brand loyalty amongst its fanbase and consumers. Despite similar outputs of content and strategy being used by other National and Football League clubs, it appears that the influence of the owners has had a more dramatic impact on Wrexham, as the club have secured many more sponsorships because of this, generating greater sums of revenue, and therefore helping the club to achieve its aims and progress through increased investment both on and off the pitch.