Caution buying a plow!

I got this pocket companion this week and this was on the first page. Must be other companies where trying to copy John Deere I guess. Any idea's on this...John

So they had to watch out for the cheap Chinese knockoffs way back then? LOL When you think of it, free enterprise was a lot more simple back then so copying someone else's product was probably easier to get away with. Deere was just a little fledgling company when that brochure was printed. Jim

They are refering to the Moline Plow Co. founded in 1866 by former Deere employees and involved in a trademark dispute in the 1870's
http://www.illinoisinfocus.com/moline.html

This explains it all. They were referring to one of the companies that would later merge, to form Minneapolis Moline Company.
Click Here

(quoted from post at 19:09:03 09/01/13) So they had to watch out for the cheap Chinese knockoffs way back then? LOL When you think of it, free enterprise was a lot more simple back then so copying someone else's product was probably easier to get away with. Deere was just a little fledgling company when that brochure was printed. Jim

Click to expand...

LOL Jim you are not too far off. A little over 100 years ago, right around 1900, we and 7 other countries deployed troops to China to put down the Boxer rebellion. We claimed at the time it was a move to protect missionaries and in part it was but it was also to protect American business interest there too. So we have been sending jobs to China for a very long time.

Rick

The Boxer Rebellion was a bit complex than just the US protecting business interests. It was as much a civil war in that area as anything else with foreigners caught in the middle. Even at that time China needed foreign trade and they surely didn't have the wherewithal or technology to produce goods for the world market of the day without outside help.

That's just the John Deere marketing executives being clever.

Psychology played just as big a role in marketing back than as it does today.

Have you ever been confused between the Moline company and John Deere from Moline? Of course not, nobody was.

But write an ad like that "Warning", and its accusatory tone makes the reader feel the Moline company (without even actually naming them) must be some bunch of weasels trying to trick the American farmer.

So the reader walks away with a sense that the Moline company is sneaky, and all they do is copy john deere (obviously not well, that goes without saying) and that they have no innovations of their own.

Why? Because of their name, it's OBVIOUS.

John Deere can hold their head high saying "oh we're just warning you not to be fooled by knockoffs" without sounding like they're blatantly badmouthing their competition.

They don't have to do comparisons of product, the readers draw their own conclusions.

Nothing's more powerful in the advertising world than a conclusion drawn by the individual on their own. That's a person who's convinced John Deere's better... because... well... just because... everybody knows it...

Then what are your feelings on the "Ford"tractor that was not built by Henry Ford,but by a company using the name of an employee?Caused the start of the Neb.Testing.

John Deere plows were known as the singing Moline plows and then other company's started calling there plows Moline plows that's what this is about john deere tried to sue to saying that buy using the moline name people were thinking they were buying a john deere plow when they weren't

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