John Deere is one of America's most iconic heritage brands, and the John Deere Tractor in particular stands out as a cultural symbol. But in 2024, research showed that John Deere had low affinity with Gen Z and millennials. The brand needed to start building the same awareness and consideration with their future customers.
Understanding that TikTok offered a huge opportunity to reach this untapped market, John Deere worked with The Goat Agency to create a TikTok partnership that would be just as iconic as the brand itself.
Their channel lay completely dormant so we needed a creator-led voice for the brand that would resonate with Gen Z and capture the attention and imagination of young social media users, as well as a consistent content strategy for building brand awareness, consideration and education.
People follow people. Our plan was to create a unique Brand Persona that would allow us to take more creative risks, post more disruptive content, and give the brand a human face.
Enter the John Deere Chief Tractor Officer.
With the help of NFL Quarterback Brock Purdy, we announced an epic hunt for an official Chief Tractor Officer; a passionate content creator that would be the face of John Deere’s TikTok channel for an entire year.
The campaign took off and we received thousands of applications, as well as a tonne of earned media coverage.
After a lengthy selection process, the Goat and John Deere teams appointed Rex Curtiss, a talented TikTok content creator whose passion and creativity stood out from the start. Authenticity and relevance matters. And Rex’s degree in Environmental Studies plus his genuine interest in the agricultural industry made him the perfect Chief Tractor Officer.
We created an announcement TikTok, again featuring Brock Purdy making the call to his chosen CTO. This TikTok alone hit over 1.6 million organic views and sparked more conversation and coverage.
Since then, the Goat and John Deere team have worked with Rex to create continuous TikTok content that entertains, educates and inspires. This includes Rex learning about the agricultural industry, judging the Farmers' stances, visiting the John Deere Tractor Museum, and educating viewers on how John Deere's machinery is used.
In particular, people have loved Rex's TikToks with fellow tractor enthusiast and ultra John Deere fan, @justajacksonthing, with Rex's third TikTok going viral at 36 million organic views, and another at 23 million views.
In just 2 months, the John Deere TikTok account grew from 73,000 to 366,000, soon after crossing the major milestone of 500,000 followers. Rex's TikToks have generated millions of views with multiple viral videos. Most importantly, the Gen Z audience on TikTok loved the content (and our Chief Tractor Officer!).
As one TikTok commenter put it, "Is John Deere like the Gucci of tractors now?"
