Livin' the Land

How could it reach farmers & ranchers, an audience hard to intercept in mass media, without a strong set of primary data? The all-terrain vehicle (ATV) category has always targeted farmers, hunters, and ranchers. For this target, ATVs are more than recreational vehicles; they are essential to get their jobs done.

The pandemic changed the profile of this agricultural target. In fact, there was a tracked and noticeable increase of North Americans moving from the cities to rural areas. It brought new, young, digitally savvy consumers to the ATV category.

Our competitors did not capture the rapid evolution of North American agriculture and misrepresented North American farmers and ranchers in their ads. They still portrayed them as older, and unsophisticated. It was an opportunity for Can-Am to truly champion these inspiring new farmers and ranchers who wanted to live off the land.

While these new farmers brought fresh money to the category, they represented a major targeting challenge. They account for only 2% of the North American population, they are poorly reached by mass media, and most publications targeting them ceased publishing in the last decade.

First-party data could have helped capture these new farmers but Can-AM does not have its own network of dealers. What’s more, independent dealers rarely shared back sales data with manufacturers. We believed we could fill this data gap with a clever and innovative content strategy.

Can-Am celebrated this new agricultural lifestyle by creating Livin’ the Land, a 4-episode content series that takes an in-depth look at this new generation of farmers and hunters with a close connection to the land. Each episode features a cinematic, documentary-style narrative and explores what drives the next generation of agriculture pioneers, from sunrise to sunset.

We created a clever content strategy to understand this new generation of farmers, which media channels they consume, and what gets them engaged.