CASE STUDY
John Deere
Business Situation:
How to align a disparate portfolio of licensed products spanning lawn and garden, apparel, footwear, toys, garage and household, home furnishings and related that had grown to $300 million in annual sales.
The portfolio would need to be aligned, positioned for international growth and brought within the closely guarded John Deere brand positioning.
Strategic Insight:
The challenge was identified as evoking the “green†farm essence of John Deere but not limiting sales potential across expanded, non-farm retailers and broader lifestyle customer sets.
Building on primary research, which pointed to lasting quality as a driving John Deere attribute, steps were taken to create for the John Deere brand its first-ever lifestyle brand positioning.
The positioning would evoke the brand’s farm essence but lean heavily on the research-uncovered opportunity surrounding “Enduring†as its key emotional underpinning.
This would enable both the hard “outer shell†of the brand (equipment, yellow and green, farm/ag) and the soft “inner shell†(values, honesty, multi-generational, families) of the brand to work together.
Brand Fluency for John Deere would be staked which affirms the brand’s place in the hearts of core farm followers and creates new connectivity with expansion lifestyle prospects.
Brand Fluency
Brand: John Deere
Brand What: Enduring Quality
Brand Why: To equip the land lifestyle, since 1837.
Brand Promise: Nothing runs like a Deere.
Results:
The work has been widely heralded both by internal John Deere Brand Management (in addition to the Brand Licensing marketing group) and also licensees and new retail partners.
The strategic and creative partnership has been covered in MediaWeek, among other industry trade pubs.
Strategic alignment of the brand’s licensing business has been successful, with business now climbing beyond $300 million toward its goal of $1 billion annually.
The effort has been successfully implemented through the Deere dealer network.
Campaign:
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