True North: Greener Together

An acquisition is always an exciting time, yet a fragile one as well. With big change can come disruption, and the transition must be handled with care. This is especially true on a large-scale acquisition that will more than double your current size as a company.

Such was the case for True North Equipment, as they approached the culmination of years of work in acquiring their neighboring company Evergreen Implement. As an existing part of our #TellwellTribe, True North asked us to propose a plan for rolling out a successful acquisition announcement and transition.

Team Tellwell met in advance to create a strategy around the announcement, including radio, TV spots, press release, written feature stories, ad copy, billboard copy and design, all under an overarching campaign theme: “Greener Together.” We collaborated with True North to ensure we met their needs and stayed flexible as the various needs of the acquisition timeline ebbed and flowed.

The result was a comprehensive acquisition rollout campaign that launched successfully in 2019 and garnered over 11,000 video views and positive response. Here’s the breakdown:

The idea of “Greener Together” was inspired by a few key elements related to the campaign.

1. As a John Deere dealership, the brand colors are green and gold. Even the word “green” carries strong ties to a deep-rooted brand that resonates with True North and Evergreen customers alike.
2. The idea of “Greener Together” gives an image of greenery and growth, positive imagery that relates both to agriculture and to the expanding of True North Equipment with four new locations.
3. The words “Greener Together” also symbolize financial growth, with more profit and success coming from a bold step forward.
4. Finally, the word “Together” is very important, as the leadership at True North Equipment and Evergreen Implement very intentionally have worked together. Despite historically being competitors, we wanted to show that at the heart of it, these two organizations have similar values and goals that will work even better — er, Greener — together.

As part of the Greener Together rollout, we created two videos:

• 3-minute mini-film: Customer facing
• 4-minute mini-film: Internal only

At the heart of these videos is the key messaging that True North and Evergreen share the same core values, the same commitment to customers and employees, and the same vision for their companies. We illustrated this by interweaving all four leaders, moving from True North to Evergreen, and asking similar interview questions to each to gain a comprehensive look at the shared values. We then pick up the pace with a look at the future, announcing the new locations and closing with a line about Greener Together (that happened naturally, not scripted! Our favorite thing!)

After the initial announcement, the follow-up advertising focused on announcing True North Equipment’s new locations. This included radio, billboard, and print ads.

We also created a 30-second radio ad utilizing Greener Together messaging and True North Equipment’s existing radio jingle.

We wrote the copy and designed two billboards for across North Dakota and Minnesota celebrating True North’s growth, and welcoming the new communities. Our primary goal with these ads was to raise awareness for the True North dealerships now available in the new communities.

“Solid. Stable. Still.” is the tagline for John Deere that was highlighted in our first True North Equipment video. We used this phrase with a bright John Deere yellow to create brand awareness and reinforce key messaging.