“We Run For All,” John Deere’s current campaign, is featured on a sign on the John Deere Classic’s Equipment Hill. The display aims to showcase some of the Moline-based manufacturer's cutting-edge machines and their impact. CREDIT KENDA BURROWS
Here in the heartland, John Deere tractors, construction equipment and the like are part of the landscape. Generally they are so far away it’s hard to understand just how big and powerful they are, or all that these green and yellow machines can do. That’s what makes the gee-whiz experience available at the John Deere […]
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Here in the heartland, John Deere tractors, construction equipment and the like are part of the landscape. Generally they are so far away it’s hard to understand just how big and powerful they are, or all that these green and yellow machines can do. That’s what makes the gee-whiz experience available at the John Deere Classic’s Equipment Hill each year so educational and impactful.The giant John Deere Classic golf ball and putter is being wielded during the 2024 JDC by Deere's 470 P-Tier large excavator. CREDIT KENDA BURROWSAt the 2024 JDC, for example, well more than two dozen pieces of John Deere equipment from mammoth to relatively modest size have been carefully situated atop that hill at TPC Deere Run in Silvis and elsewhere on the course.They are put in place by John Deere’s brand activation team, according to Holly McAvoy, the global equipment maker’s manager of brand activation and events. “When you walk in, there are nearly 30 pieces of equipment and that all comes from someone on my team who plans for the delivery,” Ms. McAvoy told the QCBJ. “Just imagine ordering and getting delivery and placement of all of that huge equipment.”And it's a big part of why, for her team, planning for the next JDC displays begins in August. The JDC “ends in July, we take a little rest, and then start talking about, ‘OK, what we want to do next year,’” she said. ”How are we going to make it better? What are our themes going to be? Do we have a campaign in place?”
Campaign shows impact
This year, that campaign is “We Run for All and its aim is to show consumers John Deere’s equipment and, importantly, how it and its customers impact the world around them.This John Deere 9700i Forage Harvester on display at TPC Deere Run, Silvis, not only helps livestock farmers harvest and chop plants into pieces and smashed corn kernels for silage. It detects the transport vehicle and fills it without spillage. CREDIT KENDA BURROWSThat message is writ large on Equipment Hill this week through letters proclaiming “We Run for All.” It’s situated directly in front of the event’s now iconic giant putter and golf ball. The putter is wielded this year by a yellow John Deere 47P-Tier Large Excavator.Bridget Dusing, John Deere’s sponsorship & events marketing manager, is “the brains behind the set up” at Equipment Hill, Ms. McAvoy said. Ms. Dusing shared with the QCBJ copies of two dozen signs she made for some of the individual Deere machines on the course in 2024.Those signs point visitors to such impressive and instructive Deere products as the innovative 412R Sprayer with See & Spray, a 772G Motor Grader and the massive and arresting 9700i Self-propelled Forage Harvester, which Deere said is unlike any other tractor-pulled forage harvester.That multi-use machine “helps livestock producers provide high-quality forage (e.g. corn, sorghum) for their animals to eat by chopping the plants into consistently sized pieces and smashing corn kernels,” the machine’s sign said. The machine's advanced technology also measures the ingredients and nutrients in the forage and a camera system, which John Deere says “automatically detects the crop transport truck or trailer and fills it with processed forage without spilling crop in the field.”
Mowers, tractors, more
Nearby are additional pieces of machines, some of which might be familiar to Quad Cities’ golf fans and farmers on the course. They include an X9 1100 Combine, a 1725C Planter, an 8R series row crop tractor, an electric autonomous sprayer, a 737OR Electric ZTrak Zero-Turn Mower and an XUV 845R Crossover Utility Vehicle.This 9R 640 4WD – built in Waterloo, Iowa, and on display on the John Deere Classic’s Equipment Hill – gives visitors to the TPC Deere Run a sense of the size of John Deere’s tractors. CREDIT KENDA BURROWSThe myriad of big and small green and yellow John Deere machines showcased at JDC this year also include a motor grader, more mowers, electric utility vehicles, a wheeled Feller Buncher, crossover utility vehicles, a sub-compact tractor and more.Their uses and users may differ but in addition to being produced by John Deere and its employees, a critical thing they have in common is that they illustrate the “We Run for All” message, Ms. McAvoy said.“Whatever you had for breakfast came from a farmer and even the roads you took to get to work were produced by our customers because we produce the construction requirement that goes into road building,” she said. In sum, Ms. McAvoy added We Run for All is about helping people understand the impact of John Deere and its employees on the world and to highlight and lift up John Deere’s customers.