How do you best introduce a combine to prospective customers and prove to them it’s worth considering for their next purchase? Bring one out to their field and let them see what it can do, the equivalent of a new car road test.
That’s exactly what Agco’s Fendt brand marketers decided to do this fall. That led to the creation of the Fendt Ideal Harvest Tour program.
“We’re still relatively new to the market,” says Brandon Montgomery, Fendt brand nanager.
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“So how do we really build brand awareness with our combine? We launched the combine at Agritechnica in 2017 and brought them to North America in 2018. Since then, we’re been making steady, big incremental improvements on the machine. This is our chance to demonstrate to North America and the world that this machine is good for everybody.”
The tour kicked off in Ohio and will finish up near Minneapolis, Minnesota, following the corn harvest across the U.S. Midwest.
Montgomery says putting an Ideal combine in fields across different regions gave the brand a chance to prove that the combine is capable of performing well in a variety of conditions.
“You’re finding different challenges, even though you’re harvesting the same crop. To make it believable for an audience, we have to cover a wide variety of terrain. This combine is capable of harvesting up to 35 different crops with the same processor: lentils, canola, soybeans, edible beans, corn.”
Agco has moulded Fendt into its global premium full-line brand over the past few years, and a lot of North American farmers aren’t as familiar with all the equipment it now offers compared to the other three major full-line brands.
Aside from introducing the combine, the tour is helping build overall brand awareness.
In all, the Harvest Tour will make 11 stops in several states. The company has co-ordinated with local dealers, finding farmers willing to be introduced to an Ideal and compare its performance to the machines they already own, putting them side by side in their own fields.
“A lot of first reactions range from, ‘I didn’t know Fendt had a combine,’ to ‘wow, I heard about it and I’m extremely impressed with the cleanliness of the sample, the capacity of the machine.’ ” says Montgomery.
“It’s turned a lot of heads. That’s what we’re trying to get out there. You can do one-on-one demos with dealers, but we wanted to cast a bigger net by really pushing this and getting the media attention.”
The staff have managed to put a farmer’s digital technology into the Ideal combine to demonstrate that those farmers already using cloud telematics services such as John Deere’s Operations Center could continue to do so even with an off-brand machine such as the Ideal.
“We’re showing farmers even though the steel and iron may be different … we can unitize the technology you have today to make a seamless transfer to bring that into your current mix. Technology could be one of the factors holding them back from making a purchase.”
Overall, the weather has co-operated with the Harvest Tour, and it hasn’t caused any missed days in the field.
Montgomery says the tour has been a success, and the company is considering doing it again next year, possibly in Canada as well.
The Fendt website is now accepting comments from farmers who would like to see the 2026 tour make a stop at their farm.
“We’re already getting some submissions for that,” he says.
Fendt is making use of social media, including YouTube posts, to document the tour and farmers’ reactions to the combine.
