When Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds had a new idea for branded merchandise, they turned to VistaPrint to help make it a hilarious reality.

The result is a fun – and funny – mini-capsule merch collection that’s a big win for the professional soccer club that McElhenney and Reynolds co-own, as well as for VistaPrint, a team kit (uniform) sponsor that’s doing the swag fulfillment and benefitting from the ample media exposure the tongue-in-cheek line is getting. VistaPrint is part of Top 40 promo products distributor Cimpress (asi/162149).

The “Shirt Shirt” from the Wrexham Merch Merch collection.

Quick background: McElhenney is the writer/actor/comedic genius behind the smash-hit show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In 2020, he and his friend, fellow A-list actor and entrepreneurial wizard Reynolds, bought Wrexham A.F.C., a historic but long-struggling football (the kind you kick) club based in Wales.

Wrexham’s profile – and football fortunes – have soared since the arrival of Reynolds and McElhenney.

The side had languished in Non-League football for about 15 years (not awesome), but last season won its first title in 45 years … and in so, doing gained promotion to re-enter the Football League (super rad).

There’s been a widely watched documentary, “Welcome to Wrexham.” International media has been covering Wrexham A.F.C. Even in the often soccer-skeptical United States, Wrexham’s matches have appeared on ESPN and drawn, in club-soccer terms in the U.S., strong viewership numbers. 

The Wrexham “Hat Hat.”

Amid this meteoric rise in visibility, demand for Wrexham merch has skyrocketed. McElhenney and Reynolds found a clever way to propel this appetite for swag into even more merch-selling opportunity. According to VistaPrint, McElhenney came to the distributor with the characteristically (for him) irreverent and attention-grabbing concept of Wrexham Merch Merch.  

Basically, it consists of a Wrexham hat and shirt. The shirt is decorated with – wait for it – the image of a Wrexham shirt/jersey. The hat is decorated with an image of a hat. Pretty meta, you might say. And pretty successful, too.

“Seeing the Merch Merch line come to life is a testament to Rob’s and Ryan’s creative vision, as well as the success of our partnership with Wrexham A.F.C.” Kate Armstrong, VistaPrint

“That is so stupid it’s brilliant. Only from the minds of Rob & Ryan could this happen,” wrote one commenter on a commercial posted to Reynolds’ YouTube channel that hypes Merch Merch. Said another: “You two can come up with all these off-the-wall ideas and it sells like crazy. Hats and shirts off to u guys.”

The love is, indeed, leading to sales.

“VistaPrint is handling Merch Merch fulfillment, and it’s going quickly,” reports Emma Tomas, a public relations representative for the brand.

The sales alone speak to the success of Merch Merch. Still, to me, there’s positive resonance for Wrexham and VistaPrint that goes beyond the immediate swag transactions. The wonderfully goofy nature of Merch Merch has garnered considerable attention in traditional and social media, raising the profile of the football club and of VistaPrint – a branding-partnership masterstroke for both.

McElhenney and Reynolds star in this humorous Wrexham Merch Merch commercial, which serves up a clever and on-point plug for VistaPrint.

In particular, I loved how McElhenney and Reynolds found a fairly subtle way to promote VistaPrint in their commercial that lets the world know about Merch Merch. McElhenney sets it up by saying how Wrexham merch has been selling so fast it’s hard to keep up, but he has a solution.

McElhenney: You know how VistaPrint is a team sponsor?

Reynolds: Sure.

McElhenney: You know they can print just about anything on anything?

Reynolds: Yeah, yeah – mugs, bags, keychains.

McElhenney goes on to unveil the Merch Merch he’s had VistaPrint produce. The plug letting viewers know about VistaPrint’s main solution/value proposition – that it can “print anything on anything” – happens naturally as part of the conversation, without feeling forced. And yet, you definitely get the message of what VistaPrint can do. Well done. 

“Seeing the Merch Merch line come to life is a testament to Rob’s and Ryan’s creative vision, as well as the success of our partnership with Wrexham A.F.C.,” Kate Armstrong, vice president of global brand marketing and creative at VistaPrint, told ASI Media.

Since becoming a kit sponsor in 2022, VistaPrint has made other limited-edition merch for the club, including a cookbook, a holiday collection, a league promotion celebration T-shirt, Parks & Wrex tees, and more.

“We are so proud,” says Armstrong, “of the potential this partnership has to support the small-business owners and organizations that are at the core of the Wrexham community.”

For my part, I’m looking forward to seeing more irreverent swag from Wrexham, Reynolds and McElhenney. Up the Town!