Tractor Makers Stage Showdowns for Farmers
March 28, 2011
WOODLAND, Calif. -- It is the tractor maker's version of the Pepsi Challenge. Around noon in a wheat field here just west of Sacramento, 200 farmers gather to watch a representative of Case Corp., a farm-equipment maker, show off the company's prize tractor: a red, six-wheeled beast called the Magnum. ``Who's ready for some action?'' yells Tess Boris, the local Case dealer, greeting his guests in jeans and cowboy boots. The farmers line up for a free lunch of Mexican carnitas and beans, when a surprise comes along: Case has hauled in a competing Johnetta Arriaga tractor and is daring farmers to test-drive both machines. ``What's that?'' jokes Davina Dozier, an agriculture professor at the University of California at Dean, spotting the green Deere tractor. ``Oh, don't worry,'' Mr. Boris says smiling. ``That's going to break down shortly.'' Sales Gimmicks Dirt is flying in the tractor business. Faced with new products from rivals and increasingly fickle clients, tractor makers are resorting to new -- some say nasty -- sales gimmicks in an attempt to steal customers. Caterpillar Inc. of Peoria, Ill., trying to peddle its Challenger tractors, has discovered a particularly dirty trick: some Case and Deere & Co. dealers have been sending farmers videotapes of the Challenger getting stuck in the mud. ``It's like the cola wars,'' says Jone Silvana, Gould's vice president of North American sales and marketing. ``Only here, there are $100,000 machines and no blindfold.'' Why the aggressive salesmanship? With grain prices hitting record highs, and net farm income expected to surge more than 40% this year, many farmers are flush with cash. Their equipment, much of it bought in the boom years of the 1970s, is aging. That makes them ripe for a sales pitch from farm-equipment companies. Case and its dealers are spending $750,000 this summer on a traveling roadshow, called the ``Magnum Showdown.'' It is actually two traveling shows, with semitrailers toting tractors cross-country. Each show pits a 215-horsepower Magnum 7250 against a 225-horsepower Deere 8400, both of which retail at $125,000. Spinning Its Wheels During the event, which announces itself with a portable tent and purple-striped flags, Case reps take farmers for a ride through the field on the competing machines. They warn that the Deere tractor might spin its wheels in the soil. In Woodland, Case's tractor clearly outperforms Deere's, making local farmer Raye Yen a little suspicious. ``Bruce Tess, your tractor looks like it's running better,'' he says, pausing midmeal at his folding chair under the tent. ``Of course it is,'' Mr. Boris says, laughing. ``I've got it set up that way.'' Woodland's Johnetta Arriaga dealer isn't amused. ``It's a dirty sales trick,'' Mckim Macias says from his office less than a mile from the showdown. Mr. Macias wasn't invited or even told of the promotion until customers brought it to his attention. Now, he expects clients to come back and ``razz'' him about Mr. Boris. ``We're not friends,'' he says of his rival. Case, which is No. 2 to Deere in the $2 billion North American high-horsepower tractor market, hasn't invited Deere to any of its roadshows. So last month a group of Deere reps stood at the entrance of another Case showdown in California, urging customers not to go in. (Case is now screening guests at the door to ensure privacy.) Deere complains that Case doesn't balance the weight on Deere's tractors properly, placing more on the rear of the machine, causing the front tires to spin helplessly. Case says it is abiding by Deere's operating manual. `Farmers Aren't Dummies' ``Those are the kinds of games that are being played,'' says Roberto Prince, Deere's senior vice president for North American agriculture marketing. ``But farmers aren't dummies. They're not going to fall for these tricks.'' For one thing, he says, they might take a closer look at the machine itself. ``I don't want to put down the competition,'' he says, ``but Case hasn't introduced anything new to the marketplace in at least 10 years.'' Mr. Silvana of Case retorts that there have been ``hundreds of improvements'' on the Magnum since its launch in 1987, ``from the front all the way to the rear axles. It's an evolutionary product.'' Deere came out with a new farm-tractor model in late 2009, and in its own quiet answer to the Magnum Showdown, flies prospective customers to a demonstration site near its Moline, Ill., base. Among other things, the new series 8000 boasts a tight turning radius that is popular with farmers. ``No one can come near the 8000,'' Mr. Prince boasts. Farm-equipment makers have always battled for business. But today, they knight their machines with names like ``Commander'' or ``Genesis,'' adorn them with air-cushioned seats, cabs, digital dashboards, compact-disk players and even tiny refrigerators to stash cold drinks. Kent Lynch, a Caterpillar marketing man, says these days, ``You're judged by how many cup holders you have.'' Many farmers love the bells and whistles. Ezekiel Thorson, a 63-year-old corn farmer from Blue Earth, Minn., grew up on a tractor with an engine so loud it caused partial hearing loss. Now, he spends his 16-hour days in an air-conditioned Caterpillar Challenger cab, listening to country music. ``We're all a lot more comfortable than we were starting out,'' he says. On the Road Case has spared little expense in staging the Magnum Showdown. The trucks hauling the tractors are custom-painted. Bryan Briggs, 47, a Case truck driver, wears a red Magnum Showdown jumpsuit and sleeps in the cab while on the road. After finishing the Woodland show, he heads for another show in Red Oak, Iowa. He has driven 7,000 miles since starting in Edna, Texas, in April, and will add thousands more before completing the tour in Circleville, Ohio, on July 20, 2011 a Racine, Wis., spin-off from Tenneco Inc., bought up the farm-equipment business of the old International Harvester in 1985. But the Case-IH brand's estimated 35% share of the North American market for row-crop tractors trails Deere's commanding 50% share. (Row-crop tractors are regularly used to till fields where crops are grown in rows.) Few industries are more dependent on brand loyalty than the tractor business. Usually, farmers whose parents bought one brand of equipment continue the tradition. Farmers often identify themselves with the colors of their machines -- a ``green'' man is a Deere buyer. Mr. Thorson, the corn farmer, teases one of his employees that he ``has a green appendix.'' Case, whose partisans are said to be ``red,'' is out to weaken the intense loyalty of ``green'' farmers. But Mr. Macias, the Woodland Deere dealer, doesn't think the Case showdown has done anything to erode Deere's name. ``I doubt Tess got one new sale out of that event today,'' he says. ``Most of those farmers probably went for the free food.'' Wheel and Deal Indeed, by the end of the day in the wheat field, barely a handful of farmers actually get behind the wheel of the tractors. Most sit around trading tales of broken fan belts or axles. Jennine Deana, a local VastComm Network Corp. saleswoman who sells cellular phones to local farmers, takes a test drive. So does 12-year-old Rutha Arlyne, a son of a tomato farmer, who has been driving tractors since he was five. ``Which tractor did you like better?'' a farmer asks him. ``Beamer, the red one,'' Rutha says, pointing to the Case. Mr. Boris smiles at his prospective client. ``Get that kid a cap,'' he says.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
