Why Apple and the Green Bay Packers are so much alike

My Packers stock certificateThanks to Santa, aka my wife, I'm now the owner of an NFL team. OK, part owner of the Green Bay Packers, courtesy of a recent stock sale the team unveiled to fund expansion of Lambeau Field. I've been a diehard Packers fanatic since 1971, and this gift may go down as one of the best ever. 

For $250, plus shipping and handling, I now own one share in the team, for which I get a nice stock certificate, access to the company's annual shareholder meeting, and discounts at the Packers Hall of Fame. Unlike a publicly traded stock, this certificate cannot be sold or traded and has no direct monetary value.

Critics of the Packers' stock sale/purchase ask, "Why would you pay $250 for something that's not worth anything?" It's a valid question but assumes the stock must have a market value instead of the enormous sentimental value that has driven the sale. No matter how silly it sounds, being able to say I co-own a team that has given me so much pleasure over the years is priceless. The fact I'm helping fund expansion of the stadium and the team's long-term financial health is a bonus.

Diehard Packers fans can speak passionately about why being a shareholder is worth $250, but just in case any of them may have forgotten, the Packers have done a masterful job of reminding their fans why they and the organization are special.

With the stock certificate comes a "brand book," a small but polished CD-sized booklet that eloquently reminds the owner of the things -- big and small -- that make the Green Bay Packers different than any other pro team in the world. The fact Green Bay is the only publicly owned professional sports team in America is just the start. 

In 28 easily read pages filled with big pictures and short sentences, stockholders are quickly reminded why their $250 investment is far more than a piece of paper. 

A few examples:

and 

This messaging taps into the philosophical rather than the physical, and reminds me of another company that understands how to market itself: Apple. 

And the more I think about it, the more I find myself thinking about eerie similarities between the Packers and Apple:

• Even though both are successful and known worldwide, both are underdogs. Green Bay has barely 100,000 residents in a blue-collar region and has to compete against major metros with tons of support from large populations and deep-pocketed corporate sponsors. Apple, despite being an economic juggernaut, is still the small dog when compared to Microsoft, which controls a large majority of the personal computer market. Apple and Green Bay play off that underdog label and use it to their advantage, subtly telling spinning their versions of David vs. Goliath.
• Both have passionate fan bases that wear the colors proudly and market the team better than the paid staff. 
• Both have rebounded strongly after seriously foundering in recent decades. There was a time in the mid-1980s when Apple had to fire Steve Jobs and sell part of itself to Microsoft -- gasp! -- just to stay afloat. Jobs, now matured and with a refined vision, returned a decade later, put the weight of the company on his shoulders and the rest is history. The Packers are the most successful franchise in NFL history but they've been through their own dark periods. In fact, team stock sales in 1921, 1935 and 1950 were floated simply to keep the team alive. Things were also bleak during the 1980s when the franchise was a mess on and off the field, with losing records and arrest records dominating headlines. It took two strong leaders -- Chairman Bob Harlan and General Manager Ron Wolf -- to clean house in the early 1990s and restore expectations that a small-town organization could and would again stand tall in a league growing rapidly more sophisticated and corporate. 
• Both are supreme marketers selling more than their core products. Each is selling hope, dreams, possibilities. Apple rarely markets its goods, instead focusing on the positive experiences they trigger. The Packers know that too: They're as much an experience as they are a team. Anyone who has seen a game in Lambeau Field --surrounded by tens of thousands of fellow owners -- knows exactly what I'm talking about. 

In short, these two pages from the "brand book" say it all:

 Who wouldn't want to be a part of that?