What started as a client ‘ask’ to create a campaign targeting women, turned into a cultural change-maker for the entirety of the Mahindra organization.

The landscape:
Mahindra USA was in its infancy in the U.S., just 10 years or so. The client request to create a campaign targeting women stemmed from research showing women carry more of a say in what tractor gets to work the family land. But we didn’t want to develop a campaign that blatantly targeted women, that’s too forced, obvious, and they’d see right through it.

We also knew that Mahindra wasn’t a household name yet. We needed to create something that endeared our brand to families for generations. And we had very little budget to do so.

More research showed that the younger generations studying ag programs in school, more often than not returned home to take over the family land and/or ag business.

The Women in Ag Scholarship Program was born—offering scholarships to young women (incoming freshmen or returning sophomores) across the country. Not only does this very quickly endear the brand to families, it positively impacts young generations of future landowners and their ability to work and sustain the family land. The land they are most certainly going to be purchasing tractors for.

The campaign included Posters, flyers and digital — I wanted to use illustration instead of the all too common photography. I wanted to create unique collectible posters, using a different illustrator each year. Large, 2’ x 3’ Posters were mailed to Counselors at the major Ag Schools to help spread the word and encourage student participation. They also hung proudly in the 100 or so Mahindra Dealer locations around the country.

Year one we managed the program ourselves, but after receiving a lot of earned media attention, the National FFA wanted to partner with us… and from year two onwards, Mahindra Corporate in India took a big interest in it with more scholarship funds along with budget to achieve greater exposure.

Oh, and after year one — John Deere created a similar scholarship program for women. Copycats.