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Marketers can learn a lot from the Green Bay Packers: America’s Team

Guest post by: Mark Johnson

Article Overview: "America's Team" teaches alot about engaging customers

Marketers can learn a lot from the Green Bay Packers: America’s Team

With SuperBowl Sunday quickly approaching, it seems fitting for me to talk about marketing lessons we can all learn from The Green Bay Packers ---- the undisputed “America’s Team.”

As ESPN recently pointed out, someone once asked the late, great NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle to name the best football city in the country. Rozelle didn't hesitate.

"Green Bay," he said. "A small town. People owning their own football team. Rabid supporters."

I actually heard a story the other day that illustrates the aura of the Packers. A bus pulled into the Lambeau Field parking lot and its passengers rushed out and raced up the steps to take pictures of themselves at the home of the Green Bay Packers. Ready for this? It was a middle school drama club from Escanaba, Mich., running early for a theatrical production of "Wicked" in nearby Appleton. With time to kill, its members had a choice. Lambeau Field or shopping. That’s right …. A group of teenage girls chose Lambeau Field over a trip to the mall.

So, what sparks this level of fan devotion? What makes the Packers America’s team? To begin with, the Green and Gold is the only publicly owned, nonprofit major American sports franchise with nearly 4.8 million shares are held by the 112,158 shareholders. And nope, shareholders do not make money from the stock ---- certificates are keepsakes to be mounted on the wall and passed among generations.

Second, in smaller markets like Green Bay (smallest city in American professional sports) sports can shape the local fabric of the community. And that is clearly what has happened in the self-proclaimed “TitleTown, USA.” I think Packers running back James Starks sums it up best, “We're a family here, and with the community also. Each player here shows respect to the fans. We give back each and every day that we can — signing autographs, talking to people. ... We try to help them as much as they've been helping us. We're all in this together."

And then there’s the “firsts.” The Pack was the first team to win the Super Bowl. First team to win two Super Bowls in a row. First team to make it to Broadway (Lombardi: An American Play is getting rave reviews). First team to make "frozen tundra" part of the football vocabulary. First (and only) team to have the famed “Lambeau Leap.”

Wonder what the most-watched show in the 2009 fall TV season was? That’s right. It was a Packers game. The second-most-watched show in cable history? A Packers game. Five of the top 20 most-watched shows in the fall of 2010? You guessed it. Packers games.

So, what marketing lessons can we take away from all of this? Here are thee nuts-and-bolts take-ways:

(1) Loyalty is a two-way street. Green Bay is loyal to its community of fans and the fans are loyal to their team.

(2) Building loyalty does not happen over night. It’s a process, a journey. As the fans in Green Bay will say, loyalty is built generation by generation. It’s in their blood.

(3) Loyalty is about emotion. Fans don’t by stock in the Packers to make money. They buy stock out of love for their team.

Which team will take home the famed Vince Lombardi trophy Sunday night? While Packer nation is hoping their beloved team trounces the Steelers….. Win or lose, fans of the green and gold will remain just that ---- die hard, devoted, to-the-core Packer fans.

I think I hear them chanting now…. “Go Pack Go”

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Article Tags: green bay packers, loyalty, loyalty 360, marketers



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