Sep 17, 2026 · 53 min · 13 segments
What does it take to spend three decades building one brand from the inside out? Eric Jackson has the answer. He started working at Tractor Supply at 16, worked his way through an agency detour at…
What was it, began as a brand tagline for people that aspire to either move out of the cities or people that want to live that rural lifestyle.
And now it's turned into something that was a brand tagline to now you're pretty much known for that nationwide.
So many a little over 20 years ago, our tagline was the stuff you need out here.
You were I mean, I think our other tagline was where America's farm and ranch shop, something like that.
And so once we started evolving and the products and the categories started changing and people in the suburbs started finding us for pet food and backyard items and all these other things.
it was all still coming from a rural inspired place that said, look, if you're the type of person that just loves to get out in the backyard and do something with your hands.
I mean, at some point, everybody gets kind of tired of your existence being through an email and you at the end of the day feel like, what did I do? But that's when you go home and you find things to do.
And that's where our lifestyle and all of that kind of came together in this smaller 16,000 square foot retail box, where it made sense to have this curated assortment.
And when we started realizing if you're having to do a curation, there is an experience and a lifestyle piece to it.
If it's just about the stuff, well, other bigger brands of big boxes, that is where it's about the stuff and the price.
We care about the price, but we really care about it has to make sense in that box for a lifestyle.
And so that was the natural transition to instead of the stuff you need out here for life out here.
What what do you found over the years? The hardest thing about like protecting and keeping that brand message authentic as like I know tractor supply every year you're.
audience base your customer base like broadens big time it changes a lot you're serving a lot of people the recreational farmer to the the true farmer to the person that just wants to have chickens in their backyard yeah
chicken craze that's that's the head scratcher of how big that has gotten but if you look 10 years back we've tried selling grills in the past didn't work now it's One of the top selling areas.
What was it, began as a brand tagline for people that aspire to either move out of the cities or people that want to live that rural lifestyle.
And now it's turned into something that was a brand tagline to now you're pretty much known for that nationwide.
So many a little over 20 years ago, our tagline was the stuff you need out here.
You were I mean, I think our other tagline was where America's farm and ranch shop, something like that.
And so once we started evolving and the products and the categories started changing and people in the suburbs started finding us for pet food and backyard items and all these other things.
it was all still coming from a rural inspired place that said, look, if you're the type of person that just loves to get out in the backyard and do something with your hands.
I mean, at some point, everybody gets kind of tired of your existence being through an email and you at the end of the day feel like, what did I do? But that's when you go home and you find things to do.
And that's where our lifestyle and all of that kind of came together in this smaller 16,000 square foot retail box, where it made sense to have this curated assortment.
And when we started realizing if you're having to do a curation, there is an experience and a lifestyle piece to it.
If it's just about the stuff, well, other bigger brands of big boxes, that is where it's about the stuff and the price.
We care about the price, but we really care about it has to make sense in that box for a lifestyle.
And so that was the natural transition to instead of the stuff you need out here for life out here.
What what do you found over the years? The hardest thing about like protecting and keeping that brand message authentic as like I know tractor supply every year you're.
audience base your customer base like broadens big time it changes a lot you're serving a lot of people the recreational farmer to the the true farmer to the person that just wants to have chickens in their backyard yeah
chicken craze that's that's the head scratcher of how big that has gotten but if you look 10 years back we've tried selling grills in the past didn't work now it's One of the top selling areas.
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