Farmall - Brand Architecture

Brand Architecture

Being an amalgamation, IH, like General Motors, gradually evolved a brand architecture during the first half of the 20th Century, when the concept was still new. IH capitalized on farmers' familiarity with its older brands stretching back to individual entrepreneurs of the earliest days of agricultural mechanization (Cyrus McCormick, William Deering), which is why legacy company brands McCormick and Deering were used. The Farmall name itself began as a model name and then evolved to encompass a model line. With the success of the Farmall, other manufacturers soon introduced similar general- to all-purpose tractors with varying success. In their early years, they often included the word "all" in the name of the product. During the first decade of Farmall sales, IH's advertising even had to emphasize the name's correlation to IH, to protect the brand name from genericization. The shift to a bright, distinctive color scheme in 1936 helped to further strengthen the branding effort.