Though they’re based in Wales and not a global city like New York, London, or Madrid, Wrexham AFC may just be one of the most relevant sports teams in the world.

That hasn’t always been the case. The team was ranked toward the bottom of the National League, which sits below the Premier League and the English Football League (EFL) in England’s football pyramid, when actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney made a bid to take over the club in 2020.

Wrexham has since been promoted in back-to-back seasons, but those successes aren’t necessarily what are drawing in big brands like United Airlines, which has been the team’s front-of-jersey sponsor since last season. Instead, the team’s off-field stats and the growing popularity of the docuseries Welcome to Wrexham, which has followed the team’s changing fortunes, have served as a major draw—even if United doesn’t actually fly to Wales.

“We’ll probably never fly to Wales, but it just so happens that one of the most popular soccer—football—teams in the states happens to play in Wales,” Maggie Schmerin, United’s chief advertising officer, told Marketing Brew. “The success of this team, through the Welcome to Wrexham documentary, through Rob and Ryan’s social channels, that was something that we wanted to be a part of.”

Flying off the shelves: Jersey sponsorships, though expensive, represent an opportunity for marketers to spread brand names far and wide: Not only do players wear the sponsor’s name on their chests for in-stadium crowds to see, but televised games bring additional reach, and fans often buy jerseys of their own to rep their teams.

For United, a jersey sponsorship with Wrexham meant securing product placement in Welcome to Wrexham, too, something Schmerin described as a perk in a world where ad-blocking and ad-skipping are widespread.

“We’ll be hard to ignore if we are literally a running billboard across their jerseys,” Schmerin said.

Continue reading here.—AM

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*The limited edition Boeing 747 design is made with 33% metal from a Delta Boeing 747 aircraft. Image for illustration only. Does not represent Boeing 747-400 aircraft used for card.

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Think Snapchat is just for kids? Think again.

Close to 25% of Snapchat users are 35 or older, Patrick Harris, Snap’s president of the Americas, said in a YouTube video about the company’s ad platform. That could end up being a draw for advertisers looking to target adults.

“Gen Z[is]…an incredibly important audience,” Harris told Marketing Brew. “At the same time, as we continue to age up, being able to talk to categories of advertisers in the automotive segment or in certain CPG categories [provides]...a lot more opportunities.”

Snapchat’s evolving brand positioning comes amid a new ad campaign promoting the platform as being different from other social media apps, and it comes amid a series of new ad features designed to court advertisers after several challenging quarters. The company also debuted new and improved Dynamic Ads, generative AI and AR tools, and other ad features for advertisers and brands.

Keep reading here.—JS

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Lizz Behler is VP, Brand, at the creative agency Spcshp (formerly known as Big Spaceship). She’s also worked at agencies including Huge, Ludwig+, and IPG Mediabrands.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Hands down, Absolut Vodka’s print campaign that started in the late ’80s. Over the years, they produced over 1,500 print ads by partnering with different artists, the first being Andy Warhol. As a young child, I collected them, because they were so beautiful, inspired, and often incredibly clever. As I reflect on what they did through the lens of today’s world, they entrusted the outward expression and creation of their brand campaign from the late ’80s to early ’00s to the original creator economy.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? Brands partnering with creators is something I love to see. If there’s a mutual overlap in the identity of the brand and the creator, true magic can happen. The caution in this is that it has to be the right partnership so that both the brand and individual are being authentic to who they are, what they represent, and what they care about. That’s when they learn and grow from each other and make meaningful connections with people. It’s arguably the most human way for a brand to show up.

On the flip side of this, it’s really off-putting when there’s misalignment between the identity of a brand and a creator. That’s when you know the creator is getting paid, and it feels directly like an ad version, a more organic integration. I can’t tell you how many creator influencers I’ve unfollowed because they oversaturated my feed with content that doesn’t fit who they represent in my life. Rather than create a meaningful brand moment, they’ve completely put me off of the brand they’ve mentioned and them as an influencer.

Read more here.

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*The limited edition Boeing 747 design is made with 33% metal from a Delta Boeing 747 aircraft. Image for illustration only. Does not represent Boeing 747-400 aircraft used for card.

**After you spend $10,000 in purchases on your new Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership.

***Effective 2/1/25, Reserve Card Members will receive 15 visits per year to the Delta Sky Club; to earn an unlimited number of Visits each year starting on 2/1/25, the total eligible purchases on the Card must equal $75,000 or more between 1/1/24 and 12/31/24, and each calendar year thereafter.

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Skydance and Paramount have agreed to terms of a merger, according to CNBC.
• Dimension, a London-based virtual production shop that has worked on Sony Pictures films, received a “multimillion-pound” investment from private-equity firm Growth Catalyst Partners.
• ConocoPhillips, a major US oil and gas producer, is acquiring Marathon Oil.