Tractor Supply taps real customers for ads to stand out from AI-generated content
When Tractor Supply Company was shooting its spring campaign at Diamond D Ranch in Jacksonville, Florida, one of the owners realized he had a repair to make on a piece of a trailer.
But rather than save it for later, the crew went into the shop and filmed him welding the part back together. The sparks, the mask and the equipment made the final cut.
This year’s spring campaign is the third time Tractor Supply has used real customers in a major marketing campaign, CMO Kimberly Gardiner told Modern Retail. It’s part of a larger push the company has been on since 2022 to highlight real team members, real customers, real properties — and real animals — in its ads as it makes authentic “Life Out Here” moments and local needs a bigger part of its brand.
“It’s a really great way for us to tell a story about Tractor Supply and everything we do — from the welding to equine, livestock care, poultry — through the eyes of our customers,” she said. “It’s something that makes us unique and different.”
When asked if Tractor Supply was focused on using real customers in ads because of the growing wariness around AI-generated content, Gardiner replied that the company wants to focus on the real-life applications of the company’s products.
“We leverage AI quite a bit, but it’s very much behind the scenes to better understand our customers.” She said Tractor Supply uses AI for customer journey planning, for example, and to reduce churn. But, she added, “What a customer sees needs to be real; it needs to be something they can relate to.”
Tractor Supply, which has more than 2,400 stores in 49 states, is growing its store fleet and sales this year. It opened 40 new stores this past quarter and has 202 more locations than it did in the first quarter of 2024. The company’s first-quarter earnings, released last week, showed net sales increased by 3.6% to $3.59 billion.
Spring is a particularly important time to drive traffic with a new campaign due to the company’s lawn and garden inventory. Nearly half of its stores have a garden center or a live goods tent with plants. CEO Harry Lawton said on the earnings call that items like sprayers and chemicals, lawn and garden tools, live goods, and riding lawn mowers are having “an excellent year-to-date,” even at a time when customers may be pulling back on discretionary spending.
“Our needs-based model continues to perform as expected in this environment, demonstrating its resiliency. We are seeing that in consistent demand across our core categories and continued engagement from our customers,” Lawton said, according to a transcript.
From a marketing standpoint, Gardiner said the company aims to drive traffic through multi-channel campaigns. It focuses TV buys on key markets and in places that may benefit from additional exposures, but complements it with paid search, paid social, organic social and earned media in local markets.
“We look at: Which are the metrics that need to get moved in those markets? Is it more of an existing customer engagement factor? Is it more that we see some room for some net new customers to be exposed to the brand?” she said. “But we think most customers these days want to hear from a brand across a multitude of channels. Then the next step for us is that true multi-touch attribution. And we’re down that path now to try to understand what the right blend is for our customers.”
For its online presence, Tractor Supply has an in-house creator team that posts DIY content on customer properties, highlighting the kinds of tools or products bought at Tractor Supply. But it also gets a host of content from in-house events. The company has more than 10,000 local events across its store fleet every year, Gardiner said. That includes Demo Days, an annual spring event for people to try out high-ticket and considered purchases like tractors. Early test drivers get free merch, and events are also plugged by local media.
Gardiner said many stores pair Demo Days with other local events, such as pet adoption, vet services or farmers’ markets. This year, Demo Days drove an average of low double-digit traffic increases across the fleet compared to a regular weekend.
“So many people say, ‘My Tractor Supply,’ or ‘I love my Tractor Supply,'” Gardiner said. “We have that national scale, but we always want to be about local first, because that’s how people experience our brand.”
Looking ahead, the company is looking to boost foot traffic and store sales by adding more localized assortments of regional needs to its stores, according to the latest earnings call. At least 200 stores now have a more localized assortment; for example, suburban stores may have more of a focus on pet food while rural stores might have more feed-and-farm-centric inventory.
And the company is currently scouting locations for its winter ad campaign. “That’s what marketing here at Tractor Supply needs to continue to focus on: What’s that hometown feel? How do we make sure we always keep our eye on what’s important to each and every local community we’re part of across the country?” Gardiner said.