Deere’s Chief Tractor Officer uses social media to reach new audiences
By Gretchen Teske – Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa (TNS)
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series that ran in Insight magazine looking at how several Iowa and Illinois companies use influencer marketing.
John Deere has half-a-million new fans, and they’ve come from an unlikely source.
The Moline-based agriculture giant is one of many companies to embrace the idea of hiring an influencer to lead its social media pages. Since the official launch of the John Deere TikTok page, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people, have watched the videos.
Jen Hartmann, director of public relations and enterprise social media for John Deere, said the idea of hiring an influencer was something that had been tossed around for a while as Deere looked to find a way to engage a new generation.
“It wasn’t a hard sell. We just knew that we didn’t want to do our TikTok channel like Deere would typically do marketing or communications or PR,” Hartmann said. “We knew that in order to reach this younger audience it had to be breakthrough. It had to be attention grabbing.”
Deere decided to call their new social media guru their Chief Tractor Officer and during the hiring process, used the likeness of Brock Purdy — a standout quarterback at Iowa State University who now plays for the San Francisco 49ers — to grab the attention of young professionals who may be interested in the job of appealing to a younger generation.
The idea to hire a social media influencer, she said, came about because farmers are aging and the company knew it needed to reach a younger demographic.
The average age of a U.S. farmer in 2022 was 58, with the average producer having about 23 years of experience, according to data from the USDA. In contrast, 9% of farmers were 35 or younger.
“As people move further and further away from rural America, they have a lesser appreciation for the customers we have: farmers, construction workers and the folks that are really keeping the country moving,” Hartmann said. “We wanted to make sure that if we were going to launch our TikTok that we would do it in a fun, engaging and unique way.”
After a nationwide search, Deere chose Rex Curtiss for the new role, despite him not having a background in agriculture. Hartmann said the company heard many questions on why the new hire wasn’t a farmer, but it was a purposeful move.
Deere already reaches farmers through its products, she said. The goal of the TikTok page was to engage a younger generation, who may not have a pre-existing connection to John Deere.
“I feel like Rex and the approach he’s taken, his creative on camera skills and his ability to create content were able to break through to audiences that maybe wouldn’t have been following a traditional ag influencer,” she said.
Originally from the San Francisco Bay area, Curtiss moved to Seattle for school, where he focused on environmental studies and business. He kept himself busy, building a following on his personal TikTok page by showcasing various hobbies.
“The whole time I was creating music, I was in a band, I was a social media influencer … creating sculptures, creating music. I was kind of all over the place,” he said. “And now I work for John Deere, getting to do what I love.”
His journey from student to social media influencer to John Deere employee moved quickly, he said.
“What a lot of influencers will tell you is, ‘I just ended up here. I was doing what I really like to do, and I was posting it online. One day I woke up and I was a social media influencer,'” he said. “I think the same can be said about my story.”
Curtiss gained popularity on the social media app TikTok for making sculptures out of recycled wax. He recorded the process and slowly started gaining a following.
“All of a sudden thousands of people started joining and joining, and I took it and ran with it,” he said.
Influencing slowly turned itself into a part-time job that Curtiss was able to sustain while he was in school. It wasn’t paying the rent, he said, but it helped supplement income from another part-time job.
Once graduation rolled around, Curtiss knew he needed to start looking at a more sustainable full-time job. Influencing had been great and he wanted to continue it, but at the time, he didn’t see that as an option.
Luckily, someone else did.
Curtiss’ brother came across the John Deere influencer job posting and sent him the position. Curtiss was in the middle of finals when he got the text, and immediately got to work sending in his application.
“I had been looking to work in social media, but nobody, nobody was hiring an influencer at the time. And nobody still is hiring an influencer like they are here,” he said. “So I thought ‘This is the perfect opportunity.'”
In a one-minute TikTok video, Curtiss sang and rapped about sustainability and the things he would accomplish if chosen to be the Chief Tractor Officer. It paid off, and he was officially hired for the gig in June.
Being an influencer is not as easy as it may sound, Curtiss said. Comment sections can fill up quickly and influencers need thick skin to be confident in what they are doing and handle everything that comes at them, including an ever-changing work schedule.
“I love change. My day is never the same. I get to wake up and have something new to do all the time,” he said. “This is another medium where I can do that, which is something I really enjoy. To be an influencer meshes together everything I like.”
So far, Curtiss’ new role at John Deere has taken him to “all the I-states” — Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Idaho — in addition to Montana, California and Wyoming. Curtiss has developed a method of interviewing farmers, taking tours of their operations and cutting the videos in ways that show people where their food is coming from and who is producing it.
“I have been visiting farms and farmers in every state and helping them tell their story,” he said. “I think people are more likely to engage with the post if they see a familiar face like me.”
The work has paid off. In the first three months, Curtiss was able to grow the TikTok account to more than 500,000 followers and nearly 6 million engagements. Hartmann said those numbers surpass many brands Deere uses as benchmarks.
“For us, it’s all about helping younger people understand just how close they really are to the industries John Deere supports and serves,” she said. “Longer term, we want to see if we’ve changed perception of how young people view farming and how they view John Deere in terms of a company they may want to work for and perhaps even the overall audience sentiment of the folks who are following us.”
The overall numbers look great, but Deere also digs deeper to look at the demographics to see who is watching the videos. About 70% of viewers are in the 18-35-year-old age range, she said, the exact target Deere is trying to hit.
Typical 18-35-year-old’s may not be going into farming, Hartmann said, but they will be making legislative decisions, contemplating jobs with Deere, deciding what to feed their children and possibly buying smaller equipment, like lawn mowers.
“For us, helping people understand the importance of where their food comes from, understanding the importance of the role farmers play, is really important for the future of farming and construction when it comes to how these young people ultimately embrace these industries,” Hartmann said.
So far, the campaign has been extremely successful in terms of numbers, engagement and education. The goal of the John Deere TikTok, Curtiss said, is to educate people on how much the company impacts people’s daily lives in ways they don’t realize.
Videos show Curtiss interviewing farmers growing everything from peppers to watermelon. Some feature 9-year-old social media sensation and self-proclaimed John Deere enthusiast Jackson Laux. A TikTok of the pair meeting for the first time amassed nearly 40 million views by October.
“People love Jackson, so being able to see somebody who is so positive, intelligent, young and passionate about a brand like us, (and us) associating with Jackson is great for us and something we’re really happy to do,” Curtiss said. “I’m super excited for what we’re going to be doing. It’s still in its infancy, this whole TikTok thing, and we have so many ideas we’re excited to share and make John Deere bigger than it is.”
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